Episode 3 Full Steam Ahead

The age of steam shaped how we live today.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

The Victorians laid over 20,000 miles of lines

in the biggest engineering project the country has ever seen,

connecting our towns with high-speed links,

revolutionising trade and transportation,

communication and recreation.

It was the greatest transformation in our history,

but how did it happen?

To find out, historians Ruth Goodman...

Flat out!

-..Alex Langlands...

-Shovelling coal is something I'm going to get

very, very familiar with.

..and Peter Ginn...

It is tough work.

..are bringing the railways back to life

as they would have been during the golden age of steam.

I feel like I'm in a Western.

This is very definitely the best steam engine I've ever been on.

Oh, no! He's gaining on us!

A brave new world.

They will be helped by armies of enthusiasts

who keep the age of steam alive... SHE GROANS

..on Britain's 500 miles of preserved railway.

-This is the way to experience train travel, isn't it?

-It is.

They'll follow in the footsteps of the world's finest engineers...

These are the men that built Britain's railways.

..those who ran it...

This is brutal. This is savage industrialism.

..and those for who life would never be the same again.

Internet? Pah!

It had nothing like the impact of the railways.

This is the story of how the railways created modern Britain.

Nowhere was the effect of the railways felt more acutely

than in the British countryside,

where the nation's food was produced.

Scour the history books and you'll struggle to find any information

on farming and the railways,

so I'm really interested in exploring the profound impact

that the ability to move bulk goods through a landscape

would have had on agriculture.

The story of steam didn't only play out on rails,

but in Britain's farmyards, fields and factories,

sparking both an agricultural and culinary revolution.

The railways were really good at moving a lot of produce

quickly and cheaply.

But what effect did that have on the food that we eat?

The arrival of steam power changed how we fed ourselves as a nation

and I'm interested in seeing just how that effected

the ebb and flow of rural life.

-This is lovely the way they all move together, isn't it?

-Yeah.

The way they flock together.

-It's nice to be back on a farm, isn't it?

-It is.

Before the arrival of the railways, in areas like rural Dorset,

the only way of transporting livestock to market

was to walk it there

along ancient droving roads that connected Britain.

In these rural areas, people are poor

and they're using very, very traditional methods

with which to get their stock to market.

Ancient means of moving livestock across the isles.

Currently, our stock are on the other side of that valley!

-How did that happen?

-Come on.

-THEY LAUGH

Quick, come back here!

Livestock driven on long journeys lose precious meat and fat.

This old and inefficient method of distributing food across the country

was no longer up to the task of feeding a population

that rose from eight to 30 million over the 19th century.

In overcrowded industrial cities of factories and mills,

fresh food had to be grown locally

and, increasingly, there wasn't enough to go around.

The 1840s became the hungry '40s

with millions malnourished and facing genuine starvation.

Way back in the 16th century, we had just about sorted out a system

of markets, carts and roads that allowed us to even out food supply,

but 200 years on, we were once again reaching crisis point.

Yes, we had increased our agricultural production,

but if we couldn't move that food fast enough and efficiently enough,

we were in trouble.

The Industrial Revolution could well, without the railways,

have just fizzled out.

Originally built to transport industrial materials,

it was the railways' ability to take fresh produce in bulk

from the countryside to the cities that rescued a nation on the brink,

transforming the way that Britain fed itself.

Sheep no longer had to be driven to market,

losing weight and condition on the way.

Now they could be taken there in hours rather than days

using the new rail network.

So long as they could be loaded safely, that is.

Having to be really careful here with these sheep

because they're spooked.

They're looking around, they're not sure

and they're big old animals.

And these hurdles are pretty sturdy, but if they went, they really went,

they could push them over the edge, so we're just going to be nice,

just let them chill out for a bit...

..get used to us.

I mean, the acid test here is going to be how they react

to an enormous great big steam locomotive

coming right up alongside them, isn't it?

What's a sheep ticket on a train these days?

THEY LAUGH

They all use the same railcard.

Right, here it is.

Using rural stations on the existing passenger and freight network,

in 1845, over 100,000 animals were transported by rail.

That's it. That's fine, isn't it, for us?

-That is...

-That's on the nail.

At its peak a century later,

over one and a half million cattle and three and a half million sheep

were travelling in livestock wagons every year.

-Here they go.

-Good girls.

That's it.

Come on. That's it. Up you go.

That went too easily.

THEY LAUGH

-Good to see you. Come on up.

-Cheers.

-That went extremely well.

-That went very well, didn't it?

Large-scale transportation of livestock on trains

hasn't been seen since the 1960s

when roads took over from the railways.

-We're off.

-And there we go.

And there we have it -

sheep moving by the power of steam for the first time

-in at least a generation, John.

-Possibly even several generations.

John Martin, a professor of agricultural history

at De Montfort University, has come to see this practice,

which had such a profound impact on both farmers and consumers.

And what must it have meant for farmers in the 19th century

to have had access to steam transportation?

Well, certainly widen the markets for all types of livestock products.

Meat production and distribution was revolutionised

by the development of the railway system.

It enabled farmers to market their fat stock,

it enabled urban centres to grow

as the result of the way in which meat could now be easily transported

-into these growing centres.

-So, they want more and more meat.

They've got a taste for meat and the railways can deliver that.

The railway certainly delivered it.

Rising, expanding middle classes in terms of numbers,

growing population and the railways played a key role

in enabling commercial meat to be produced.

Meat consumption in Britain tripled over the 19th century,

but as much as the railways benefited farmers,

for many, the physical impact of these iron roads was less welcome.

I look to my left and I look to my right and I see a field there

and a field there, but before this railway was here,

that was one field.

They're left with essentially two farms.

Crossing from one field to the other was a perilous task.

A collision with a farmer's cart in 1833

is said to have inspired the first locomotive whistle

and drivers like Steve Barker have to give good warning

on their approach to unmanned crossings

at whistle points along the track.

When we go past the W, give it a blast.

-Yeah, OK.

-So, we're coming up.

I can see the W.

WHISTLE BLOWS

We've got a bend there.

-That way.

-They can't see us,

-but that gives enough warning that we're there.

-Yes.

-OK.

In 1883, stray livestock on the line

accounted for collisions with 110 sheep, 59 cows, 40 horses,

four donkeys and one deer.

And you were saying that depending on the crossing

depends on how far ahead you whistle?

-Yes, you might have a footpath where people can see in time.

-Yeah.

-Obviously, for a pedestrian to walk across doesn't take long.

-Yeah.

But a farmer with a couple of cattle or a trailer of some sort,

-it takes longer...

-Yeah.

-..so they need to be able to see further.

If they can't see, that's why we have a whistle -

to warn them we're coming.

I don't know how our sheep are doing.

This is quite a ride for them.

A brave new world.

This is our destination.

-And those sheep look perfectly fine, don't they?

-Yeah, looking excellent.

-Just another day at the office for them.

-Yeah.

Good job it's not another day at the abattoir.

From a growing nation struggling to feed itself in the 1840s,

the consumer now had access to produce

from all over the British Isles.

Cities no longer had to rely on fresh food grown locally.

Spreading deep into the countryside, connecting people and places,

the railway network created a national market,

changing the way food was produced, what was produced

and where it was produced.

WHISTLE BLOWS

So, this line was built in order to gain access

to a really quite remote part of the countryside.

We're in the North York Moors

and because of the nature of the ground - it's very high -

the roads really weren't up to much.

They were difficult to get over, there was large bog areas,

wagons and carts got bogged down, they had very steep inclines,

so it meant that this area was really quite cut off.

The railway was deliberately put here

to open up this part of the countryside

and, in particular, to gain access - easy access -

for people and goods to the last station along the line, Whitby.

The Whitby and Pickering line revived the fortunes of Whitby,

then a declining and isolated whaling port on the North Sea coast,

allowing it easy access to the rest of the country.

The project was a great success,

turning Whitby into a thriving fishing town.

Photographs collected by local historian Glenn Kilpatrick

show the extent of Whitby's once booming herring industry.

These are the herring boats leaving port.

-Oh, my goodness.

-We're actually stood right here at the moment...

-Oh, so we are.

-..on towards the east pier lighthouse.

Gosh, there's loads of them. Look at their little lights.

Right out to the horizon.

As children, we were told you could basically walk one side

of the harbour to the other, across them.

Oh, yes, I see what you mean about being able to walk right out.

-It's an awful lot of boats.

-This was herring fishing.

-Herring fishing.

-Yeah.

Just look at the sheer number of fish.

Yeah, shovelling 'em up.

That many, just using a shovel to get them in the barrel.

-Oh, wow.

-And this one here.

Now, that's a lot of fish.

That really illustrates the amount of fish.

And they're hauling this sort of catch out of the sea

again and again and again and again and again.

Yeah. Over a long period of time, yes.

By the 1880s, almost 5,000 people were employed

in Whitby's herring industry.

Transported in bulk by the railway,

it became a relatively cheap staple of the Victorian diet,

eaten in working-class households

that had never been able to afford fresh fish before.

They became known as the poor man's friend,

and although overfishing would eventually lead

to the herring industry's demise in Whitby,

some local traditions have survived.

-Barry, hello.

-Hello.

-Cor, they look good.

-Still smoking traditionally,

the way we've always been smoking these.

-Still using the Victorian methods?

-Yes. Nothing's changed.

Barry Brown is the fifth generation of his family

to run Fortune's of Whitby.

The firm has been producing kippers for 144 years.

What's the approved method?

-In with your knife just above the fin.

-OK.

-So, you run it down its backbone, through the head...

-Jeepers.

..back down the backbone to the tail.

Don't go through the tail if you can help it.

I would flick it. That bit...the gills come up.

-It's more or less ready for washing.

-OK.

Right, well, you made that look simple.

Fish, hand on, pointed knife...

Herring fishing was seasonal as the shoals moved south.

Travelling down with them on the east coast rail lines

were migrant workers from Scotland,

employed to gut the fish for low wages.

It's quite tough through the head, isn't it?

It helps if you just push against it...

Push against it and do a little... OK, I'll try that next one.

All were women.

They were known as the herring girls.

So, I have read the herring girls could do up to 16 of these a minute.

-Probably.

-I might do one in a minute if I'm lucky.

The fish guts weren't left to waste.

They were sent by train to factories,

where they were processed into fertiliser.

But if I went back to the beginning of the 20th century,

I'd find myself down that railway

not just surrounded by boxes of kippers,

but also by great big barrels full of fish guts

that were heading off inland to be used as fertiliser.

Yes, it was used as fertiliser, yeah.

I'm making a mess of them, aren't I? You can be honest.

You're making a mess of them. Your first one was your best one.

SHE LAUGHS

The herring will be cold smoked,

meaning that the fish remains uncooked.

This is not only for taste but to preserve the herring.

-This process is to keep the fish longer.

-Yeah.

It also colours and flavours it, but it is for keeping purposes.

Cold smoking the herring is a delicate and skilful art

requiring just the right quantity and combination of wood

to cure and flavour the fish.

So, these shavings, it's quite critical what sort of woods

-you're using?

-This is hardwood. It's oak.

-Oak.

-Oak shavings.

-Right.

So, we want this to burn and smoke,

but when we put the dust on top of that, that'll calm it right down.

-So, it's about oxygen control?

-Yes.

So, you're wanting oxygen in at the base,

-but not too much near the surface?

-Yeah, cos we get flames then.

We don't want too many flames.

It's just a calming down thing with the oak here.

So, they're just supposed to be small, low, smoky,

-not much heat, lots of smoke?

-That's right.

It must be utterly second nature to you.

It is, to be fair, yeah. We sort of light fires.

-We don't put them out.

-SHE LAUGHS

The herring will be smoked for over 24 hours.

Only at the end of the process can they be called kippers.

Cheap and easily transported without the need for ice-packed wagons,

the railways and kippers were an ideal match.

They could be posted to any destination on the network,

using either freight or passenger services.

-Morning!

-Good morning.

Even modest-sized firms like Fortune's of Whitby

could now send their products by rail to all corners of the country.

The smaller consignments would just be popped into the guard's van

and this mixture of freight and passenger all in one train

meant that small businesses with smaller loads

could take advantage of the railway network

using all the trains that ran.

It gave it a real flexibility as a freight system.

-Lovely, thank you.

-Fabulous.

As food on the dinner plates of Victorian households

was sourced from further and further afield,

the new rail distribution network created greater competition

amongst the nation's producers and farmers...

..both in business...

..and in the show ring.

This was when agricultural shows caught on -

a chance for livestock breeders to check out their rivals

from across the British Isles.

I am always amazed, when I come to a show like this

and you can see all the different breeds of sheep together

in one place, just how much they're different.

-Yeah, it's remarkable, isn't it?

-Yeah.

The first Devon County Show took place in 1872

when the railway brought together farmers and their animals

from the county and beyond.

Back in the 18th century, before the railways,

you'd only ever know about breeds

by looking at those wonderful colour plates that were produced.

But the problem with those colour plates is they're idealised.

-Artistic licence.

-There was a lot of artistic licence.

The railways come along and all of a sudden, a farmer from Suffolk

can get on the train, come all the way down to Devon

and for the first time, he can actually clap his eyes

on a different breed and weigh up its characteristics.

-See if the actual animal lived up to the hype.

-Yeah.

Not only could farmers come face-to-face with rivals' livestock,

but using the rail network,

breeders could now travel across the country

with their prize rams and bulls,

selling their unique qualities to the highest bidder.

What about this? This thing crashed out here?

Well, there's a big lad, isn't it?

Chief livestock steward Edward Dark

has been breeding sheep for over 60 years.

These are the Exmoor Horns.

-They come from Exmoor, so they're bred on top of the hills...

-Yeah.

-..and they have to be very, very hardy to exist up there.

-Right.

So, going back, in an age before the railways, really,

as a sheep farmer, you weren't choosing what breed

-you could use or specialise in.

-No, that's right.

-You very much worked with what was local to the area.

-That is so.

As the railways enabled livestock to be moved more easily

over long distances,

giving rise to a threefold increase in meat consumption,

Victorian farmers increasingly began to either experiment

with other breeds or crossbreed their own stock

with bigger animals from different regions,

better suited to changing demands.

Look at that one.

-I mean, that is a monster.

-He is a big lad, isn't it?

But the key thing about introducing the Suffolk

-is about getting the meat.

-It's putting more meat back.

They've got the size and they've got the extra flesh over the top

and over the loin.

-The leg of lamb was expensive. You know, joints are.

-Yeah.

Victorian farmers not only wanted the meatiest breeds,

but the most productive.

Why were sheep farmers looking to cross their breeds

-with a Border Leicester?

-Well, yes.

They're more prolific and they put more milk into their progeny.

So, when you say prolific, what do you mean by that?

-They had more lambs.

-They had more lambs?

That's right, yeah. And produce more milk into that female, you see.

Because if you didn't have that extra milk, you know,

the extra lambs, she wouldn't be able to rear them, would she?

Right, I get it.

Well, it's great to have been talked through some of these breeds.

-You know what the old saying is, don't you?

-No, go on.

I must hurry up and go along steady.

-Right. I must hurry up and go along steady?

-Yeah.

-You remember that one.

-I must hurry up and go along steady.

-OK, then.

-All right.

As selective breeding grew in popularity

among a society that valued social rank,

so did competing to see who could breed the most impressive animals.

Prize-winning bulls became celebrities

with people travelling from far and wide to see them.

-He seems quite docile for a bull.

-Yeah. Well, he is, yeah.

If you've got to go in the field and watch out for the bull chasing you,

I'm too fat and old now to run too much,

so I'd rather have a nice bull like this.

This year, Mike Cowell's Red Ruby Devon

won the top prize in its class.

With a bull that you're showing,

what characteristics are you looking for?

-When he walks in the ring, you look at his head...

-Yeah.

..make sure it's a nice Devon head.

Then you'd walk round him, stand off him a little bit,

have a look at the length of the bull.

And this is a particularly long bull.

It's almost got an extra rib.

And then look at him from the back.

Checking his legs and just making sure he's good for the job.

His job, obviously, is serving cows,

-so he's going to be on those legs quite a bit...

-Right.

..so he's got to have good legs.

If you're judging for a show,

is that akin to also if you were going to purchase to breed?

-Yeah.

-You'd look for the same things?

-I would look at it exactly the same way.

-OK.

So, breeders like you are giving animals like this

the best life possible, so we can essentially have the best meat.

He lives fantastically well, this bull.

I go on holiday and he comes with me and it's all right, it's good.

I'd do the same, but I don't think he'd fit in the caravan.

-Well, Peter, it's been a great show, hasn't it?

-It has.

I think it's time for us to hurry up and go along steady.

-Did you say cider tent?

-Well, maybe on the way.

Driving all these changes in farming were the consumers

in the expanding Victorian cities.

At the epicentre of the rail network was London itself -

by 1871, a metropolis of over 4 million people,

drawing fresh produce from all over the country to its main markets.

Smithfield, Covent Garden, Spitalfields

and for fish...

..Billingsgate.

Billingsgate became, very rapidly,

the biggest fish market in the world.

And this vast expansion was due to the new transport, the railways,

that were able to bring produce from all those east coast fishing ports,

places like Great Yarmouth, Whitby, Grimsby,

all concentrating down to one market.

All of Britain's fish in one place - Billingsgate.

By the mid-19th century,

120,000 tonnes of fish were traded through Billingsgate each year.

The market had a reputation for foul language and lively characters.

"Arrive in a good coat," one Victorian warns,

"and you'll leave in scale armour."

Good morning. Welcome to Billingsgate.

This looks fabulous.

Yes, a grand variety of products we're proud of.

Don Tyler is one of the few current wholesalers

who has worked in both the original building

and the new site, opened over 30 years ago.

I have a list here that I just wanted to ask you.

It's a list of quantities being sold in Billingsgate in about 1850,

so just after the railways really get going,

and it's talking about herrings - 250,000 barrels at 150 per barrel.

Is that comparable to modern?

Well, it isn't comparable because very, very sadly,

we don't see that quantity of herrings now on a regular basis.

So, in the 1850s, there was more herring coming through Billingsgate

-than there is now?

-Oh, very much so, yes.

Unfortunately, now, with quotas and tonnage restrictions,

we go several weeks of the year now where herrings are not available.

-Right.

-I think we've missed a generation out of the public

who have learnt or been taught how to eat a herring, quite frankly...

-I know what you mean.

-..cos they're missing so many weeks of the year.

Yeah. I mean, the list is just enormous.

Cod is talking about 400,000, averaging ten-pound weight each.

-Whiting - 17,920,000.

-Scary, isn't it?

They're staggering figures, even for me,

and I've been in the trade many years,

and they would be even more staggering to people

coming into the trade newly now.

They think, "Well, no, those sort of tonnages aren't feasible,"

but they were.

In 1830, at the dawn of the railway age,

a clerk at Billingsgate had told a reporter

that the working classes would never eat fish.

20 years later, they were seen as the main ingredient in their diet.

-Oh, wow!

-Well, hello. Fish and chips, is it, Ruth?

The son of fish and chip shop owners,

Daniel Dixon works at Beamish in County Durham,

where they've recreated a coal-fired chippie

as it would have been at the turn of the 20th century

when this institution had become firmly rooted in British life.

I mean, it's just like a modern chip shop, isn't it?

-It is.

-It's like everything you would expect to see.

And it's in miniature cos this sort of thing would have been found

in someone's back room on the end of a terrace.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-It was that sort of...?

The people of the street would come with their own bowls and plates

to be filled.

-So, really quite makeshift?

-Oh, yes. Look at the size of this.

You could easily fit that in front of your fire breast

-in your front room.

-You could, actually.

This would be quite easy to just install

-and turn your front room into a little shop.

-Exactly.

-Yeah.

We call it a rumbler. It's a potato-peeling machine.

Demand was so great that selling fish from living rooms

was soon replaced by purpose-built chippies

that used the latest technology to satisfy the nation's appetite

for convenience food.

Oh, yes!

So, this really is about the whole commercial

-stepping up of production.

-Oh, yeah.

Because we have customers to be fed...

-Yeah.

-..and we've got to do it quickly enough to supply that range.

You always have one troublesome potato.

-Yay!

-There we are.

Shove a potato in and press.

Yeah, I'm liking this already.

You'll need to go a lot faster than that, though, Ruth.

-SHE LAUGHS

-There are customers to be served!

-And you don't stop until that bucket is full.

-Right. Okey doke.

Whoo!

Despite becoming a quintessentially British combination,

the chip came from the French and the battered fish

arrived on these shores with Jewish refugees.

How do you tell if these are hot enough, then?

There's no thermostat, there's no temperature control.

So, it's traditional experience?

-Traditionally, they would have spat into the pan...

-No!

..and if the fat spits back, it's all right to fry.

Fish and chips were invariably fried in beef fat,

a readily-available by-product of the meat trade.

I think we could just about get this fish in.

-I'll let most of it drip into the pan...

-Right.

..so that you get all of your batter bits.

-Is that enough?

-Yeah. Lay it in because if you drop it,

you'll cover your hands in hot dripping.

There you are. You're now a fish fryer.

-That's another feather in your hat.

-SHE LAUGHS

I can't think of anywhere in Britain that hasn't got a fish and chip shop

-somewhere within easy distance.

-Exactly.

-Well, it's a national dish. Everyone loves it.

-It is a national dish.

And that's weird, too, isn't it?

I mean, in a world before railways, there weren't any national dishes.

Everything was local.

You know, every area had its own specialities, its own regional...

This is the first time you have a pan-Britain speciality dish.

It must have been a revelation, though, mustn't it?

To just go to a shop and buy a hot dinner instantly

-at affordable prices.

-Exactly.

It must have made such a difference to people.

And this is the first instance of that.

Like, nowadays, our culture is fast food.

Your local village chippie was the first example of that.

From the cod to the potato,

from the coal to heat the ranges to the newspaper wrapping...

-Good spot.

-Looks good.

..fish and chips was a railway dish,

giving rise to a new takeaway style of dining.

This is proper fish and chips, this is.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, beef dripping.

-That's what it is.

-Cooked over coal.

That is delicious.

And here we are eating it outside in public.

-That's a big deal.

-It's a funny thing to think, isn't it?

You know, that the whole eating in public,

eating takeaways is such a new idea,

that people didn't eat in public.

I mean, modern culture is just so completely...

..almost centred around takeaway food.

-Everywhere you go...

-There's no taboo.

No, people eat everywhere and yet, before the railways, nobody did.

Absolutely nobody.

It's fish and chips that start off this outdoor eating.

-Well, the railways are changing the diet...

-Yeah.

-..but they're also changing social mores.

-Yeah, they are, absolutely.

And I think if I eat any more of these fish and chips,

-I'm going to have a heart attack.

-THEY LAUGH

Via the railways, people in Victorian Britain

were getting used to fresher,

better quality and cheaper food in the shops.

Seeking to keep pace with the growing demand,

the nation's biggest landowners looked for ways

to bring their increasingly antiquated farms

up to speed with the industrial age.

In the 18th century, landowners were investing vast sums of money

in brand spanking new buildings like this.

The problem was, by the time we got to the middle of the 19th century,

these buildings just weren't up to scratch.

They weren't designed to meet with the challenges

that the railways presented farmers with in the 1850s.

Capturing the aspirations of the day,

at Holkham Hall in Norfolk, a model farm was constructed -

a purpose-built set of buildings that more closely resembled

a Victorian factory than Georgian barns.

Here, the aim was to produce more and produce it cheaper

by incorporating the latest technology

from manufacturing and industry.

And this really is the business end of this model farm - a steam engine.

And I could just as well be sat on the footplate of a locomotive,

although this is a static engine.

And this is the thing that effectively changes British farming

in the 19th century because this steam engine,

via a flywheel and a drive wheel over there,

would be actually powering a drive bar

that runs all the way along the back of this farm,

and it would power all sorts of tools in workshops in a row.

So, you'd have a sawmill, saw benches,

bellows, plate hammers,

effectively a series of craft workshops,

which were designed to service this farm.

A new age powered by steam.

Faced with the challenges of increasing productivity,

Victorians recognised the potential of steam power

to be harnessed on land as well as in workshops.

In 1854, the Royal Agricultural Society of England

even offered a prize of £500

for anyone who could find an efficient steam substitute

for the horse-drawn plough.

The winner, John Fowler, had himself witnessed the horrors

of the Irish potato famine a decade earlier

and had resolved to devote his time and resources

to cheapen food production,

inventing engines and a plough that would be exported around the world.

-How are you getting on, then, George?

-Yeah, not too bad.

-Good morning, gentlemen.

-ALL:

-Morning.

When I think of steam ploughing,

you sort of tend to imagine a steam engine actually pulling a plough,

but that isn't the case, is it, with these engines?

-No, not at all, no.

-What's the set-up here?

-So, we'll have one engine either end of the field...

-Yeah.

-..and we'll pull the plough backwards and forwards.

-Right.

The plough will be pulled on a steel rope

between Mark Farwell's two engines,

but first, they must be perfectly lined up.

How are we doing? Are we broadly parallel, do you think?

No, I think we're a bit...

I haven't quite got to grips with this steering, have I, yet?

-We'd better back up a bit.

-Let's back up again.

There we go.

Although much faster than the horse-drawn plough,

the steam method still required a team of workers

to operate the engines and plough.

WHISTLE BLOWS

And tractors would work in teams

travelling from farm to farm and paid by the acre.

The standard Victorian horse-drawn plough

had just one share making a single furrow.

Under steam power, a plough with five shares could be used.

Just amazing to think of the power in this cable.

And, in fact, this steam engine isn't using all of its power

to pull this plough.

If it did use all of its power, it would actually start pulling

these two steam engines closer together.

That's how powerful it is.

It's amazing for me to see it today,

but just cast yourself back to the 1850s

and think about a farmer seeing this power for the first time.

I mean, the ambitions they must've had for these machines -

the ability to plough 20 to 30 acres in a day

rather than your standard one acre a day,

which you would have done with horses.

It's just phenomenal.

It must have been a really revolutionary moment

in British farming.

Ploughmen like George Willie would be judged

on their speed and accuracy to produce straight furrows.

I think it's time for you to earn your keep, isn't it?

Really? Let's go for it.

-Right.

-When you're holding on to it...

-Yeah.

..try not to put your thumb like that

cos if we get steam, it'll break your thumb.

-So, I'm sort of like this?

-Yeah.

-So, it's not power-assisted, then?

-No, no, no.

-I need my thumbs.

-HE LAUGHS

-OK, driver.

-WHISTLE BLOWS

Goodness me.

Up against that. Ooh, blimey.

That'll be a stone.

-Right, there we are. We're in.

-Yeah, you're spot on.

My word, the power of this thing is absolutely incredible, isn't it?

This is great. Ooh, a bit more speed now.

-You've got a bit of confidence now you've done a bit.

-Yeah.

When we get to the end, you want to pull full lock towards this way.

-Right, OK. Full lock.

-Yeah, full lock.

-Full lock.

-Yeah, go on.

-Full lock. That's full lock.

Go back the other way a little bit.

-There we are.

-That's it.

And you're ready to go back down then.

-Did you enjoy that?

-Did you enjoy it?

That was good fun. I just want to look back, look at the work.

-Oh, my goodness, that's not too bad.

-It's not too bad, actually.

I must admit, I haven't told you something

-about going back the other way.

-What's that?

-Left is right and right is left.

-So, it's reverse steering.

-It's reverse steering.

-OK.

Don't ask me why.

It could've been quite easily rectified, but...

They just thought they'd throw that in.

-You've got to remember these blokes drunk a lot of cider.

-Yeah.

-So...

..maybe that was something to do with it, I don't know.

OK, then. So, I think I'm ready for this.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Here we go. Reverse steering.

Ooh.

Not too bad.

I've never concentrated so hard in all my life, George.

-You can start coming this way now.

-Start coming this way now.

So, it's this way, isn't it? Down to pull me out.

Now just go back the other way a little bit.

-Not bad.

-Yeah, that isn't bad.

-You're all right? You're happy with it?

-Yeah.

There's a little kink in it.

-Let's have a look.

-Not bad at all, really.

If you get any kinks in it,

-all you have to say then is there was a bird's nest...

-Yeah.

-..and we were going round the bird's nest.

-Oh, that's what you say?

-That's a skylark.

-Yeah, that's it.

Cos obviously we don't want to damage it because, you know...

So, if we get any kinks,

"There's a little bit of a bird's nest up there.

"I think that's what we'll put it down to, OK?"

Yeah, I'm happy with that.

Keeping up with the supply of food that the railway

could now distribute in greater quantities than ever before,

steam power provided the answer.

In agriculture, increased mechanisation radically altered

the way in which we grew cereal crops

and chief amongst those cereal crops was barley,

which, as we all know, is the main ingredient in beer.

Traditionally, beer had been produced locally

by thousands of small, independent breweries.

Many were put out of business as the railway network paved the way

for the emergence of national brewing centres.

By embracing the steam revolution, against bigger competition,

Britain's oldest brewery, Shepherd Neame, grew and prospered.

The brewhouse was always on this site

-drawing water from the source every day since 1573.

-Wow.

Its success and subsequent expansion from a small-town brewery

to a major regional player in the south-east

owed much to both the arrival of a rail link

to London and the Kent coast

and the foresight of Jonathan Neame's Victorian ancestors

to swap horsepower for steam power.

-Pretty special, isn't it?

-Yeah. This is fantastic.

Installed in 1860 to pump water from a natural spring,

three storeys up to the top of the building,

the combined efforts of steam on rail, and in the brewery,

had a dramatic impact.

This was put in only two years after the railway came in,

so the brewery could see that there was a great opportunity

-for expanding.

-So, it's freeing up manpower

-and it's making everything more efficient.

-Absolutely right.

Between 1858 and the early 1870s,

the production of this brewery multiplied four times.

By 1900, we had 18 railway depots

from Harwich through to Brighton and South London,

so we were putting quite a lot of beer on the railways

and transporting it around the south-east of England

on a sort of distance - an economic distance -

-that we still cover today.

-My goodness.

-Beautiful, isn't it?

-Absolutely remarkable.

I think I could watch this for hours.

Milling, stirring and pumping,

four separate engines powered the brewery,

mass-producing beer on a scale unimaginable before.

The railways were able to transport the beer over long distances,

but barrels still had to be moved from breweries to stations

and from warehouses to pubs

and once again, steam power provided a faster

and more efficient alternative to the horse.

-Hi, Guy, are you all right?

-Are we all loaded?

-Yeah, I think so.

-You ready?

-I'm ready.

-You're driving?

-Yeah, I'm driving.

You're in charge of all things to do with steering.

Right, I'm steering? OK.

Guy Debes has brought along this traction engine,

which evolved from the portable engines used in agriculture,

transporting goods faster and in greater quantities

than any horse and cart.

These are really strong, as well.

-A little engine, really powerful.

-Yeah.

It was designed to pull a load of ten tonnes.

-Quite small, as well.

-Yeah, small. It was built to do a job.

These were the sort of engines you'd use in a town centre,

city centre, for delivering goods.

They'd turn up at a railway mainly with two trailers on,

load the goods onto the trailers

and it would deliver them either to the shops or the end user.

And what's the advantage of this over the horse?

You'd simply need an enormous team of horses to do what it can do.

-Right.

-And, of course, it doesn't need feeding

other than coal, a bit of maintenance.

Its working life span...

Once you got over the initial investment, which was pretty huge...

-Yeah.

-..this particular engine

worked for over 50 years for one company.

-You'd have needed five generations of horses.

-Yeah.

It's quite fast, isn't it?

Oh, you wait until we see it in top gear.

-Oh, we're not in top gear yet?

-Oh, no.

For a short golden period in the middle of the 19th century,

steam power had rejuvenated British farming.

But by the 1870s,

this wonder technology had itself become the farmer's worst enemy.

The ambitions of these early, pioneering,

industrial agriculturalists were never realised

and this is because the same steam technology

that was being used to power forward

the Industrial Revolution here in Britain

was also being exported to other parts of the world.

In places like North America, for example,

they were setting out railway lines that were connecting up the ports

on the East Coast with vast acreages of virgin prairie

in the central heartlands of America.

And it was on this prairie that farmers were growing wheat

in huge quantities.

The railway lines could then ship it back to the ports,

it could be steam-shipped across the Atlantic

and then the railway network here

could transport it throughout the country.

As a consequence of this, British farmers just couldn't compete

and British agriculture in general suffered

arguably the greatest depression it had ever seen in its history.

Reacting to the sharp fall in wheat prices,

many Victorian farmers moved away from arable farming,

either turning to livestock

or making best use of the railway network

by supplying specialist perishable produce

that their global competitors couldn't provide.

Railways permitted a real nationalisation,

indeed, a globalisation of markets,

but at the same time, and perhaps a bit ironically,

they also created the possibility for true local specialisation.

No longer did you have to do a bit of this and a bit of that

and a bit of the other that you could sell locally.

You could now put all your efforts

and really concentrate on the one thing that your soils, your climate,

your skills and expertise were particularly good at.

Take this line here running through Methley in Yorkshire.

Now, it was originally built to move coal. It was a colliery line.

However, what it meant, in the end, was that the farmers in this region

could turn all their attention to one special product.

Oh, my goodness.

In dark, giant sheds, Yorkshire farmers grew rhubarb.

What a strange place.

Just a decade before the first railways,

a new method of growing rhubarb had been discovered.

Shielded from the light in the final stages of growth,

rhubarb was found to yield a more flavoursome and succulent crop.

And these plants are actually growing in the dark.

They are. They are simply growing looking for light,

but they've got all the energy they need in the roots.

Janet Oldroyd, whose family has been producing rhubarb since the 1930s,

is the latest in a Yorkshire rhubarb dynasty.

We know today rhubarb is a vegetable,

but we eat it as a fruit.

-What fruit did they have? Home-grown.

-Absolutely.

-In the coldest, darkest moments of the winter.

-Yeah.

So, it was perfect. It was a treasure, basically.

So, this became a major industry for this small area?

It did. It became known as the Rhubarb Triangle,

and within that triangle,

over 200 producers became established.

Why did rhubarb growing become concentrated

in this little triangle of Yorkshire?

The location, the climate was perfect for rhubarb root production.

Everywhere else they tried, they couldn't get as early

and they couldn't get the yields.

With the ideal soil and climate,

and ample supply of cheap local coal to heat the sheds, and shoddy -

a by-product of the wool industry - to fertilise the ground,

the quality of the Yorkshire crop became renowned.

By the late 19th century,

95% of the nation's rhubarb were grown by Yorkshire farmers

and distributed from one rail line.

So, how much rhubarb was being produced?

Over 200 tonnes nightly when it was at its peak.

-200 tonnes of rhubarb a night?

-Yeah.

Destined for the London markets and then on into Europe.

-Out of this one small area?

-Unbelievable.

So, the trains became nicknamed the rhubarb express trains

because all they carried was carriage after carriage of rhubarb.

-Entire trains full of rhubarb?

-Entire trains.

A railway industry. Who'd have thought? Rhubarb.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

As the railways facilitated the rise of regional specialisation,

so specific areas of the country became famous

for their agricultural production.

Clotted cream from Devon,

Scottish Highland beef,

Jersey potatoes and Somerset cider

all grew in reputation during the steam age.

This revolutionised their industries and their economy,

but it also changed the landscape, as well.

But, arguably, the most significant development

was not here in the countryside,

it was in the cities because access to all of this new produce

effectively changed the nation's diet forever.

At the heart of this revolution was the Mid-Hants line.

-Cheers, then, chaps.

-Thank you very much.

Originally opened in 1865

as an alternative route between London and Southampton,

the Mid-Hants line became best known for providing Victorian Londoners

with their latest superfood, watercress.

Still produced by grower James Harper

in the same mineral-rich spring waters as its Victorian heyday,

watercress could only be eaten close to where it was grown.

-Well, here we are.

-Lovely.

-A spot ready to go.

-All ready to be picked.

-Absolutely.

-OK.

Getting watercress from field to mouth relied on speed,

something the railways made possible.

So, what are we doing here, then, James?

Well, we're actually pulling the watercress with its roots.

-We pull and clear.

-OK.

-So, you pull it with the roots...

-With the roots.

-..and then we're packing it into this wicker flat.

-OK.

Right, I've got a bunch of...

a poorly-picked bunch of watercress here.

But how quickly is that going to deteriorate?

Well, the reason why they used to send it with roots

is because it kept the plant going a lot longer.

When it got to market,

it was sold in what was called hands of watercress,

so it's physically as much as you can get in your hands.

It was cut and cleaned, so you'd chop away the roots

and that would be a hand of watercress.

And then that was made into smaller bunches and then sold as -

you know, with raffia round them - sold as little food on the go,

-food on the move.

-So, I could buy that off you now

for a day in the factory and then I...?

-Mm.

-That's right. And your hands would often be covered in...

If you were in a factory working all day,

you'd want something you could hold.

You'd eat the leaves and the tops of the stems

and then you'd discard the leftovers.

And what would it have meant to late-Victorian London, for example,

to have something quite as healthy as this

-being served up on a daily basis?

-Well, I think it's safe to say

it was revolutionary. It was.

You know, it's a really good, cheap, affordable,

available to the masses source of nutrition.

And in terms of gram for gram,

there is no vegetable that is more nutrient-dense than watercress.

Wow. That is delicious.

-That's about as fresh as it gets, that is.

-Absolutely.

The development of the Hampshire line

meant that watercress could be picked in the afternoon,

taken by horse and cart to the station that evening

and be on sale in London markets

by the early hours of the following morning.

Keith Chambers worked in the line's parcel office in the 1970s.

And as a product,

how much would it have cost to send punnets like this up to London?

-Well, it was what was called a perishable rate.

-Right.

So, it was about double what a standard parcel would be.

Is that because it's this perishable good?

-You know, it's quite a high-maintenance good.

-Exactly.

-It's because it had to be looked after.

-Yeah.

-It had to be got onto the platform quickly...

-Yeah.

-..and onto the first train possible...

-Right.

..and unloaded quickly at the other end.

Did you eat this sort of stuff?

Did the staff indulge themselves in this sort of stuff?

Well, interestingly, some of the staff just wouldn't eat it

because the rumour was that when they wanted to relieve themselves

in the watercress beds, they didn't walk right to the edge, of course.

-OK.

-You can guess what...

-Oh, OK.

-HE LAUGHS

Well, I can assure you this has been picked

from the cleanest watercress beds there are in Hampshire.

From a world before the railway,

when the only fresh food on the dinner plate

had to be grown locally...

..when livestock still had to be driven to market on foot...

..by the end of the century, the way Britain fed itself

and what people ate had changed beyond recognition.

WHISTLE BLOWS

The rail network and the national market that it created

provided the consumer with more choice,

more variety and a more nutritious diet than ever before.

You've got some English lamb here?

-Yeah, all the lamb is English.

-OK.

Well, I think I'll have the two small ones and a big one for Peter.

All this at a time when the population had more than tripled

and most people had moved away from the countryside

to live and work in towns and cities.

How are you doing? All right? You've got the asparagus.

-Straw-bangers.

-We trusted you to get the strawberries?

-What did you get, then?

-I've got some lamb chops.

Lamb chops, strawberries - classic combination.

Imagine being in late-Victorian London

and seeing all this food coming into the city.

Vast urban populations creating this huge demand for more food

and for more specialised food.

It's that exchange between the countryside and the city

that is vital to allow the city to industrialise

and the countryside to focus on producing produce such as this.

And the change in both, isn't it? You can't separate the two.

The countryside is utterly changed by this new distribution system,

this new specialisation.

I love the fact that this is a market built in the arches

of not one, not two, but three railways.

-They're all over here.

-It's quite an amazing space, isn't it?

Well, I'll tell you what. Spice -

that's the one thing we don't have for our wonderful lamb, asparagus

and what is rapidly turning into strawberry jam meal.

-OK.

-Jersey potatoes, as well.

OK, two things. Maybe a bottle of cider, as well.

-That's three things we don't have.

-OK, three things.

Next time, we see how the railways connected people as never before,

revolutionising the postal system...

It's remarkably physical for something as light as a letter.

..delivering up-to-date news...

News today...

..is chip paper tomorrow,

and that was only possible because of the railways.

..radically speeding up the pace of life.

Wow.

It's amazing to be able to have this kind of food on a train.

THEY LAUGH

A bit of a hot potato, that one, wasn't it?