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The age of steam shaped how we live today. | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
The Victorians laid over 20,000 miles of lines | 0:00:12 | 0:00:16 | |
in the biggest engineering project the country has ever seen. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:20 | |
Connecting our towns with high-speed links, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
revolutionising trade and transportation, | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
communication and recreation. | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
It was the greatest transformation in our history. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
But how did it happen? | 0:00:32 | 0:00:33 | |
To find out, historians Ruth Goodman... | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
-Look out! -..Alex Langlands... | 0:00:37 | 0:00:40 | |
Shovelling coal is something | 0:00:40 | 0:00:41 | |
I'm going to get very, very familiar with. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
-..and Peter Ginn... -It is hard work. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:46 | |
..are bringing the railways back to life, | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
as they would've been during the golden age of steam. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
I feel like I'm in a western. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
This is very definitely the best steam engine I've ever been on. | 0:00:56 | 0:01:00 | |
Oh, no! He's gaining on us. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
Brave new world. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
They will be helped by armies of enthusiasts | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
who keep the age of steam alive... | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
..on Britain's 500 miles of preserved railway. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
-This is the way to experience train travel, isn't it? -It is. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
They'll follow in the footsteps of the world's finest engineers. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
These are the men that built Britain's railways. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:29 | |
Those who ran it... | 0:01:29 | 0:01:30 | |
This is brutal! This is savage industrialism! | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
..and those for who life would never be the same again. | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
Internet...pah! | 0:01:38 | 0:01:39 | |
It had nothing like the impact of the railways. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
This is the story of how the railways created modern Britain. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
The steam railways connected towns and cities right across Britain, | 0:02:04 | 0:02:08 | |
revolutionising the transportation of goods, people, even information. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:15 | |
The way we communicate in Britain has never been the same | 0:02:15 | 0:02:18 | |
since the arrival of the railways, and I want to find out first-hand | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
just how they transformed Britain's postal service. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
In the second half of the 19th century, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
Britain was in the grip of an electrical revolution. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
I'm interested in finding out how, practically, the railways | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
facilitated this new age in communications. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:39 | |
Britain was becoming ever more connected. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
The introduction of express trains like the Flying Scotsman | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
meant people began to see themselves as belonging to one common culture, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
one economy, and crucially, one nation. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
Before the railways, | 0:02:56 | 0:02:57 | |
most people in Britain thought of themselves as being from Galloway, | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
or Monmouthshire, or Derbyshire. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:03 | |
They didn't really think of themselves as being British. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
But within a very short time of the railways arriving, | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
that had completely changed. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:12 | |
How did we get to feel so connected? | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
In 1800, | 0:03:23 | 0:03:24 | |
the quickest way to send a letter was by horse-drawn mail coach, | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
but it could take days to arrive. | 0:03:28 | 0:03:30 | |
As the population became more literate, | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
the volume of letters soared, | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
so what was needed was a quicker, more efficient way of sending mail. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
In 1838, the introduction of mail trains provided a solution. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:49 | |
Letters could now be conveyed in hours, rather than days. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:52 | |
This is all the post from Loughborough. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
Nice little feature, a ramp down the stairs for sliding down | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
the bags of post, in this case, or indeed any luggage. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:04 | |
I suspect it's every child's dream. | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
Although I've seen a sign saying, "Don't use this slide". | 0:04:07 | 0:04:10 | |
At the Great Central Railway in Loughborough, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
Peter is bringing this postal service back to life, | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
helped by a team of enthusiasts. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
Right, last bag. We just take it round there, do we? | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
Peter's helping Paul Harrison load the mail | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
collected from the local area. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
-We're going in this door here. -OK. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
You have to call out the destinations | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
-and then they're logged in on the train. -Right, OK. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
So we've got Burton-on-Trent. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:41 | |
Burton-on-Trent. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:42 | |
First, the post was roughly divided into sacks | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
for the different areas that the mail train was travelling to. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
So you're just looking at the labels on top there? | 0:04:48 | 0:04:50 | |
Yep. Coalville. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:52 | |
Coalville. | 0:04:52 | 0:04:53 | |
-Coalville. -Another Coalville. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:55 | |
-Burton-on-Trent. -Burton-on-Trent. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
-Derby. -And Derby again. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
So I'll get rid of this and then we can jump on board. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
At a time when the people of Victorian London could expect | 0:05:09 | 0:05:12 | |
up to 12 postal deliveries to their homes every day, | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
and the suburbs around six, speed was everything. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
In 1936, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
the role played by the railways in speeding up the postal system | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
was immortalised in one of the first documentaries about working life... | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
It tells the story of the Postal Special, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:35 | |
carrying mail through the night from London to Glasgow, | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
complete with a WH Auden poem. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:40 | |
This is the Night Mail crossing the border | 0:05:43 | 0:05:45 | |
Bringing the cheque and the postal order | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
Letters for the rich letters for the poor | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
The shop at the corner and the girl next door | 0:05:50 | 0:05:52 | |
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
The gradient's against her but she's on time. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
To make the service even faster, | 0:06:00 | 0:06:03 | |
trains didn't just transport the mail, | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
they featured a new innovation - the TPO, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:08 | |
otherwise known as the Travelling Post Office. | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
Now the mail could be sorted on the move, too. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
Derby. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
Leicester. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
Stafford. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:22 | |
Each sorter has 48 pigeonholes, known as fillets, | 0:06:22 | 0:06:26 | |
representing different towns. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
The mail must be sorted before the train reaches its first destination. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
TPO historian Brian Hallett is on hand to help. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
It's a race against time. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:38 | |
So, what do we do? Do we just take the bundles? | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
-Take the bundles. -Yeah. -And with your trusty scissors... | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
I left my trusty scissors at home. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:47 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
And am I going stamps-in, stamps-out, does it matter? | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
Normally you do stamps-out. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:56 | |
I couldn't actually read that. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
In its heyday, the TPO workers picked up, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:02 | |
sorted and delivered 500 million letters a year. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:05 | |
These men were key to the efficient running of the country, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
ensuring mail got delivered on time. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
I suppose you must have got quite fast at this? | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
The TPO sorters were among the fastest sorters in the Royal Mail. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:19 | |
So they were known for sorting up to 3,000 letters an hour. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:23 | |
-Per person? -Per person. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:25 | |
3,000 letters an hour, what's that? That's 300 every six minutes. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
One per second. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:30 | |
I mean, 3,000 letters an hour is an immense amount. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
I think I managed to get close to one a minute, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:39 | |
and I suspect someone else is going to have to re-sort what I've done | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
because I kind of started losing track. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:45 | |
These were the postal elite. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:49 | |
They were faster, harder working, | 0:07:49 | 0:07:51 | |
and with the stamina to sort at speed against the clock. | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
The people that worked on here... If you were doing the north-east TPO, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
and you were based in Newcastle, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
you'd travel down the first night on the passenger train, | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
and work back to Newcastle, sorting, that night. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
-Yeah. -The following night, you'd work from Newcastle to London, | 0:08:08 | 0:08:12 | |
sleep over in digs during the day, | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
then you'd work the next night back to Newcastle. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:18 | |
It must've been quite a tight-knit bunch of guys. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
Very much so. Can you imagine working with a bunch of people | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
in the same coach, for five nights of the week? | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
You've got to get on. And if you didn't get on, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
-you didn't survive on the Travelling Post Office. -Yeah. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
Despite working at speed on a constantly moving train, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
there was no room for error. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
The sorters were responsible for making sure their fillets were empty | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
when they'd finished sorting. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:44 | |
And the cleaners would actually go through after the shift - | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
if they found any letters, they'd get a bonus, | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
and that bonus would come out of the sorter's salary. | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
So you want to make sure they're fully clear, | 0:08:52 | 0:08:54 | |
otherwise the cleaner's taking home your money? | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
Yeah. | 0:08:57 | 0:08:58 | |
Once sorted, the letters for the first mail-drop | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
are tied into bundles. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:03 | |
Tying up the letters - pull the string all the way down? | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
Pull the string down and cut off the length you need. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
Yeah. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:13 | |
So these now go in here. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:15 | |
So now we need to tie that up, ready to go in to the pouch to drop off. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
So if you want to tie that on there? | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
-OK. -Two or three times around with the string. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
And these labels... This is the same as the bags we were loading on | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
at the start, so it just tells you where it's going. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
That's right. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:38 | |
So that's got its label on, | 0:09:38 | 0:09:40 | |
so that's ready to go down into the pouch, | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
ready to be dropped off. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:43 | |
-That's going off quite soon, isn't it? -Yes. -OK. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
Thanks a lot. Take it away, sonny boy. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
Righto, handsome. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
The TPO didn't just deliver and collect from stations, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:58 | |
it also picked up and dropped off post at small towns and villages | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
along the way... | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
without the train even stopping. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
The first use of this system was on | 0:10:13 | 0:10:15 | |
the London Birmingham Railway in 1838. | 0:10:15 | 0:10:18 | |
Within 70 years, there were 245 in operation. | 0:10:19 | 0:10:24 | |
So the first thing to do is get these flaps over | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
so you get a very neat package... | 0:10:27 | 0:10:29 | |
..where nothing can come apart and you don't lose any of the mail bags. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
Imagine doing this all night long, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
on a journey from Edinburgh to London. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:44 | |
OK, so this is quite a constant process. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
I'm just getting worn out doing this one. | 0:10:47 | 0:10:50 | |
So there you have one mail pouch ready for dispatch. | 0:10:50 | 0:10:53 | |
Next, the mail pouch is attached to an arm | 0:10:55 | 0:10:59 | |
on the outside of the train. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
-Just pull? -Strong pull. | 0:11:03 | 0:11:04 | |
Some workers were so terrified of doing this, | 0:11:07 | 0:11:10 | |
they paid a colleague to hang the bags out for them. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
It feels quite weird. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
So you bring the bag to the edge? | 0:11:16 | 0:11:17 | |
Bag to the edge, bring the arm in. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
That flap just closes to stop it falling off. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:25 | |
You do find that they will come off | 0:11:25 | 0:11:27 | |
so we put a piece of string round it just as an extra safety, | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
so we don't drop the bag before we should do. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:33 | |
That would just be a nightmare. I suppose if the bag falls off | 0:11:33 | 0:11:36 | |
before the drop zone, you've got to... How do you find it? | 0:11:36 | 0:11:38 | |
Well, the people who were on the ground | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
have to walk back up the track and find all the letters. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
So this piece of string is actually quite an essential bit of kit. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:47 | |
It is, yes. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:48 | |
Further down the line, | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
Ruth is getting ready for the TPO's mail to arrive. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:55 | |
Oh, I see. | 0:11:57 | 0:11:59 | |
And that's it, locked in place. Collect the bags. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:02 | |
So they're supposed to shoot in there? | 0:12:02 | 0:12:04 | |
As the train passes through, I certainly wouldn't like to be | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
down that end when the bags come off the train. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
So the main thing is, stand well clear. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:10 | |
-Indeed. -Right. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
As well as mail pouches being dropped off from the train, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
they could also be picked up. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:17 | |
With help from TPO expert Phil Payne, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
she's preparing the mail ready for the train to collect. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
-They ain't light, these bags, are they? -No, they're not. | 0:12:22 | 0:12:26 | |
I'll tell you what really I find interesting is how much they look | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
like saddlebags. You know, they've still got that form | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
from the old stagecoach days, haven't they? | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
It's leather made, you know, by a saddler. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:37 | |
There's a lot of work goes into these. It's all hand-stitched. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
There'd be no other way to do it, would there? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
And there's at least six layers in that. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:44 | |
So many of these older crafts, you know, | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
carry on a life in the automated railways | 0:12:47 | 0:12:50 | |
for donkey's years. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:51 | |
You couldn't find anything else to replace that kind of | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
quality of leather to do the job that it's about to do. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
I mean, a train hitting that, it's going to need | 0:12:59 | 0:13:01 | |
to take some punishment, so they stuck with leather. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
On the TPO, there's three minutes to go before the mail pick-up. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
-You've got the net. -Yep. -You push the top lever down, | 0:13:10 | 0:13:14 | |
and then push the whole thing down in one smooth operation | 0:13:14 | 0:13:17 | |
-until it clicks in place at the bottom. -Yeah. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:19 | |
You only do that once we've called "board". | 0:13:19 | 0:13:21 | |
Then, after you've done the exchange, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:23 | |
the mail bags will come in and we'll call "net", | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
and that's when you release it to bring the net back in. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
OK. And I can't practise this now, can I? | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
There's no way you can practise it now. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:33 | |
You've only got one chance, and that has to be ready to do it, | 0:13:33 | 0:13:36 | |
because we can only put the net out in safe locations. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:39 | |
So how many letters would be in one parcel like this? | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
I should imagine anything up to about 1,000. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:46 | |
-Gosh. -In weight, bags would come in about 60lbs, 50lbs of post. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:51 | |
So, when the train hits it at full speed, | 0:13:51 | 0:13:54 | |
they're doing round about 70, 80mph. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:56 | |
OK. | 0:13:56 | 0:13:57 | |
If it ever went wrong, | 0:13:57 | 0:13:59 | |
you'd be picking up letters down the track for weeks. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
So... But that's that one done. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
You get those up there? | 0:14:05 | 0:14:06 | |
Yep. | 0:14:06 | 0:14:08 | |
Quite a weight, as you can see. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
Got it? Up we go. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
The leather pouches are attached to a stand by a spring clip. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
-It's not really a one-man job, is it? -Definitely not, no. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
After word is received that the TPO is approaching | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
from the nearby signalman, the bags are swung out ready for collection. | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
Right, ready? | 0:14:29 | 0:14:30 | |
On the mail train, there's less than a minute to go before the pick-up. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:46 | |
Peter is preparing to drop the net. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
Are we in quite a dangerous area here? | 0:14:49 | 0:14:51 | |
We're in a very dangerous area, because this is the location | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
where the pouches will come flying in once they hit your net. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:58 | |
So the faster the train's going, the harder they come in? | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
Yes. At 85mph, they could land anywhere | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
from hitting the ceiling and on to the benches. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
The mail was picked up and dropped off simultaneously. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:10 | |
On the postal special from London to Glasgow, | 0:15:10 | 0:15:13 | |
these exchanges took place 34 times a night, | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
so the crew had to know the route intimately. | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
If the net is put out too early, it could hit a signal or a bridge. | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
So the team looks for a track-side board, | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
indicating the exchange apparatus is approaching. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
-Do you want to get to the net? -So this is the lever? -Yes. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
And you're going to say... | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
Well, one of my colleagues is going to shout "board". | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
-All right, now? -No, no. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
You want two bridges and 45 beats. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:42 | |
One...two... | 0:15:44 | 0:15:47 | |
Now! | 0:15:47 | 0:15:48 | |
-Board! -So, go down... Put it down now. | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
All the way down, that's it. It's in. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
OK, net, net. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:11 | |
Well done. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:13 | |
OK. It's all right, we've still got a net. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:18 | |
Yes. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:19 | |
Whoa! | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
There you go. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:24 | |
Yeah, I see what you mean about vigorous. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
Quite substantial, isn't it? | 0:16:27 | 0:16:28 | |
It's remarkably physical | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
for something as light as a letter. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
Oh, my goodness. That was a flash, wasn't it? | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
Yeah, all done very quickly. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:42 | |
It's almost like magic. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:43 | |
Suddenly, you know, these two parcels have miraculously appeared | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
and, yeah, it's the mail, ready to be sorted, I suppose. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
-All ready to be sorted. -Yeah, we can't just stand around. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
Get it open, get it out there and get it back out to the next stop. | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
-We need to get the lads working. -Yeah. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:57 | |
For over 130 years, TPOs worked across the country, | 0:16:57 | 0:17:01 | |
picking up and dropping off mail. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:03 | |
But as trains got faster, the exchanges became more dangerous. | 0:17:03 | 0:17:07 | |
So in 1971, the service was scrapped. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
On a modern train, you can't even open the window. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
Not these days. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:14 | |
It gets quite exciting. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:17 | |
Did many people fall out? | 0:17:17 | 0:17:19 | |
Erm, they didn't have many accidents with the TPO crew. | 0:17:19 | 0:17:24 | |
It was more the driver and the fireman looking out | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
-when they shouldn't have done. -Oh, to watch the...? | 0:17:28 | 0:17:31 | |
And getting hit by the bags. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:33 | |
Standing up on the cab, | 0:17:33 | 0:17:35 | |
there's quite a few stories about firemen losing their head, | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
literally, so it's quite a dangerous occupation. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
Once the mail was collected, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
the process of sorting started all over again. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
It was a never-ending cycle. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
Even tea breaks were taken on the go. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
-First division, coming over. -And again. | 0:17:54 | 0:17:56 | |
Second division. Another one. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:59 | |
The TPO crew ran from, say, | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
nine at night until six in the morning and they had to eat. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:05 | |
So they provided them with basic - and they are basic - | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
cooking facilities. Be careful, cos it's hot. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
Because they didn't actually have a meal break while they were working. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
They'd carry on working, have their tea, a pie, and carry on sorting. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
Do you fancy a pie? | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
Thank you very much. | 0:18:22 | 0:18:23 | |
Before the railways, | 0:18:42 | 0:18:44 | |
few people travelled beyond their local towns or villages, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
so felt little connection with other parts of the country. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
But the railways forced a change that was to finally get the nation | 0:18:52 | 0:18:56 | |
working in sync. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:58 | |
The traditional way of telling time back in the medieval period | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
was to use the position of the sun and a sundial. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
And it would have been watched by one of the church members | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
who would have come out and he would have checked that sundial, | 0:19:07 | 0:19:10 | |
and when the time was right, he would have gone in and rung the bell | 0:19:10 | 0:19:12 | |
and everyone in this community would have heard that bell, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:15 | |
they would have known what time it was, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:17 | |
what time to say masses and what time to say prayers. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:19 | |
As the sun rises earlier in the east than it does in the west, | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
cities across Britain could vary in time by up to 30 minutes. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:28 | |
In an age when the horse was the fastest mode of transport, | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
the odd minute difference here and there didn't matter. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:37 | |
But once high-speed trains began connecting | 0:19:38 | 0:19:40 | |
Britain's towns and cities, this became a problem. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
London was four minutes ahead of Reading, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:49 | |
11 minutes ahead of Bristol | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
and 18 minutes ahead of Exeter... | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
..resulting in some very confusing timetables. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
Something had to be done. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:02 | |
Alex has come to Bristol Corn Exchange | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
to meet railway historian David Turner. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:09 | |
So what's going on up there? | 0:20:09 | 0:20:10 | |
Well, we have two minute hands on this clock. | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
-OK. -The red one is London time. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
The darker one is actually Bristol time. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:19 | |
Right, OK. So that darker hand | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
is ten minutes behind the other red hand, | 0:20:21 | 0:20:24 | |
-which is reflecting the two different time zones. -Yeah. | 0:20:24 | 0:20:27 | |
So when the railways came, this brought with it Greenwich Mean Time, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
because the railways needed everything standardised, | 0:20:30 | 0:20:32 | |
they needed trains to be meeting at the right places, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:36 | |
for everybody along the line, all the staff, to have the same time. | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
Standardising time across Britain coordinated the railway network, | 0:20:40 | 0:20:45 | |
allowing it to run more efficiently | 0:20:45 | 0:20:47 | |
and making towns and cities more connected. | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
But some areas were resistant to change. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
How are people over here in the west of England reacting to that? | 0:20:54 | 0:20:57 | |
They kind of feel the railway's invading them, the area. | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
There is a nickname for London time and it's called Cockney time. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
It's a sort of kind of derogatory term for that time from over there. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:10 | |
And the people are quite resistant, so apparently, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
in the commercial halls in Bristol, | 0:21:13 | 0:21:16 | |
this gentleman stands up with his grandfather's pocket watch | 0:21:16 | 0:21:20 | |
and he argues, "If one hand was good enough for my grandfather, | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
-"it's good enough for me." -Right. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:25 | |
This is an invasion, the "other time" is coming in, | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
invading the area and changing people's rhythms, | 0:21:29 | 0:21:34 | |
their ways of life that have been in existence for, well, centuries. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
This was a time of change in Britain. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:42 | |
While steam was revolutionising how we travelled and communicated, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:47 | |
a new source of power was being developed alongside it, | 0:21:47 | 0:21:51 | |
one that would change the world. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
Electricity. | 0:21:54 | 0:21:55 | |
The first use of electricity was a revolutionary communication system, | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
the telegraph. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:01 | |
It allowed messages to be sent long distance | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
down a wire, instantaneously. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:08 | |
But to connect towns and cities, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
cables would need to be laid between them. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:14 | |
And with ready-laid corridors through the countryside, | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
the railways provided the perfect routes. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:22 | |
The railways themselves took advantage of this new system | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
to ensure that a safe distance was maintained between trains. | 0:22:29 | 0:22:32 | |
That's "train entering section". | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
Signal boxes communicated the position of a train along its route, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:44 | |
using the electric telegraph. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:46 | |
-And this is all using telegraph technology? -Yes. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:51 | |
That's how you're communicating with the other signal boxes, | 0:22:51 | 0:22:54 | |
through a series of bells relayed through telegraph systems. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:57 | |
That's right. | 0:22:57 | 0:22:58 | |
At Milton Keynes Museum, | 0:23:01 | 0:23:03 | |
Bill Griffiths is showing Alex how to use the first | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
commercial electric telegraph to send Peter a message. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
Developed by Cooke and Wheatstone in the 1830s, | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
it took some getting used to. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
Peter's going to be sat at the other end of the line | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
waiting for a message. Can you show me how this thing works? | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
Well, as you can see, you've got a range of letters there | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
and you actually have to point to the letters, and you do that | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
by moving these handles in opposite directions. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:30 | |
So you have to spell out every letter. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
Alex's telegraph machine is connected to Peter's by wires, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
and moving switches on one moves the needles on the other. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
(The anticipation.) | 0:23:41 | 0:23:43 | |
Right, OK, so I'm going to send Peter a message. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:46 | |
So M. If I then go Y... | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
-My friend. There's no space bar, is there? -No. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:58 | |
I'm just watching these arrows... | 0:23:58 | 0:23:59 | |
So they both point to F, that makes an F. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
In an age before telephones, | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
being able to send instant messages known as telegrams | 0:24:04 | 0:24:08 | |
was revolutionary. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:09 | |
But there were limitations. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
There's no U. | 0:24:11 | 0:24:13 | |
And there's no C either. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:15 | |
We're missing letters here. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:16 | |
There are. And I used to worry about that. I thought, how on earth | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
do you send messages when you've got letters missing? | 0:24:19 | 0:24:21 | |
C is quite important. U is quite important... | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
We actually do it all the time, don't we? | 0:24:24 | 0:24:26 | |
We send messages without certain letters. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:28 | |
And we get used to it. So if you left... | 0:24:28 | 0:24:30 | |
On most occasions, if you left a letter out of a word, | 0:24:30 | 0:24:34 | |
or misspelt it - and they had this problem - | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
people would understand by the whole message. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:39 | |
R... Receiving me... | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
He's obviously had a couple of drinks. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
-"Are you -recieving -me?" I think that is. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
OK. So let's see what comes through. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
I. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:54 | |
B. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:56 | |
E. | 0:24:57 | 0:24:58 | |
I before... | 0:24:58 | 0:24:59 | |
I before E. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
I before E... | 0:25:04 | 0:25:05 | |
Oh, yes. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
I before E, | 0:25:08 | 0:25:10 | |
except after C. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
Always keen to pick me up on my mistakes, Peter, isn't he? | 0:25:13 | 0:25:16 | |
Soon railways became the hub of communication, | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
with telegraph offices to send and receive telegrams, | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
for the public, for businesses and even the police. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:28 | |
While criminals could make their getaway on a train, | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
the fastest mode of transport at the time, | 0:25:31 | 0:25:34 | |
the long arm of the law could now get there even faster. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
There was the well-known murderer, John Tawell, who was caught, | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
and he thought he'd got away with it, got on the train, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:43 | |
got away and they were able to signal from Slough to Paddington. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:49 | |
They couldn't telegraph his name, that wouldn't mean anything, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:51 | |
but they were able to telegraph a description of what he looked like. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
They recognised him, or they thought they did, getting off the train. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:57 | |
So you've got the bobbies at the other end, knowing what | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
-this guy looks like. -That's right. -And that's how they got him. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:02 | |
An unprecedented... Something we take for granted nowadays. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
But unprecedented back in that time. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
I think it was the beginning of making our whole lives much quicker. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
That's a road we've travelled on from then until now. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
So everything has got speedier. | 0:26:13 | 0:26:15 | |
To start off with, it was just used as an emergency service - | 0:26:15 | 0:26:19 | |
I don't think it would be used every day. But then, of course, business | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
found out how useful that would be to get the information quickly, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
so that took off, and then of course for news, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
and then spread to be used in more and more different ways. | 0:26:29 | 0:26:33 | |
Every time I send an e-mail, | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
I shall be thinking about this machine, | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
cos this is basically where it all began. | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
Telegrams meant breaking news stories could be sent | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
to newspaper companies in London's Fleet Street within minutes. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:51 | |
The Victorian age saw a boom in newspaper sales, | 0:26:51 | 0:26:54 | |
thanks to the railway network that distributed them. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
Printer Patrick Rowe is showing Peter how a newspaper proof | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
would have been quickly assembled | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
once news came through the telegraph system. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:08 | |
So you're putting it in upside down? | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
Yes, it's just easier to read from left to right, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:14 | |
the way you normally would. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
The letters are all back to front so that when you ink them up | 0:27:16 | 0:27:18 | |
and print them, they're the right way round. | 0:27:18 | 0:27:22 | |
It wasn't just the railways that boosted circulation. | 0:27:22 | 0:27:25 | |
In the 19th century, | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
homes were increasingly being fitted with gas or even electric lighting, | 0:27:27 | 0:27:31 | |
providing more time for reading. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
Is that rubber or metal? | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
It's zinc, and the tones are produced by these dots. | 0:27:35 | 0:27:39 | |
And the smaller the dot, the lighter the tone and the larger the dot, | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
the darker the tone. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:44 | |
Yeah. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:45 | |
It's like you're doing this with bits of Meccano. | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
-So, what are these? -These are quoins. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
These are the very old-fashioned type called hempel quoins. | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
You can see what's going on, the two wedges... | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
And as you turn the key, | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
it makes the wedges take up more space so it compresses. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:07 | |
So it locks everything. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:08 | |
Locks it all up nice and firm. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
So we've put the type in, | 0:28:12 | 0:28:13 | |
so we'll have to ink it up and proof it. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:16 | |
Before the railways, newspapers had been a luxury item. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
The Times cost 5p, a third of the daily wage of a station porter. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:27 | |
But when the Daily Telegraph dropped its price to a penny in 1856, | 0:28:29 | 0:28:34 | |
other papers soon followed suit. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
-That's better. -Oh, that's good. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:44 | |
So crisp, isn't it? | 0:28:46 | 0:28:47 | |
There you are, the proof. | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
The proof. And I would be taking this to... | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
Somebody would need to check it before it goes together | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
with the lines of type to put the whole pages together. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:02 | |
So, "Flying Scotsman breaks world speed record". | 0:29:02 | 0:29:05 | |
So we just need to check the picture. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:09 | |
Oh, my goodness. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:10 | |
I can see the driver. | 0:29:10 | 0:29:11 | |
Although headlines were still hand-set, | 0:29:14 | 0:29:16 | |
the body of text was set using state-of-the-art machinery... | 0:29:16 | 0:29:19 | |
..then the proof finalised. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
The newspaper was then ready for printing. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:25 | |
As newspapers became more affordable, circulation soared, | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
driving a need for better printing methods. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:34 | |
By the 1860s, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:38 | |
rotary printing presses fed by rolls of paper five miles long | 0:29:38 | 0:29:43 | |
were able to print up to 12,000 pages per hour. | 0:29:43 | 0:29:46 | |
Newspapers could now be printed through the night... | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
..and delivered to the railway station | 0:29:52 | 0:29:54 | |
in the early hours of the morning. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:55 | |
This is news today... | 0:30:00 | 0:30:02 | |
..and it's chip paper tomorrow. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:06 | |
And that was only possible | 0:30:06 | 0:30:08 | |
because of the railways. | 0:30:08 | 0:30:09 | |
Newspapers could be on sale in towns and cities all over Britain | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
before breakfast. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:18 | |
For the first time it was possible to wake up to national news | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
hot off the press. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:31 | |
Inside the newspapers, readers were bombarded with adverts | 0:30:36 | 0:30:41 | |
for goods and services. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:42 | |
From health pills and skin creams to job vacancies. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:48 | |
Even babies. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:51 | |
In Victorian Britain, having an illegitimate child | 0:30:53 | 0:30:57 | |
carried a huge stigma. | 0:30:57 | 0:30:58 | |
But amongst the classifieds were adverts purporting to solve | 0:31:01 | 0:31:04 | |
an unmarried mother's problem. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:06 | |
At a time before adoption and fostering laws, | 0:31:08 | 0:31:11 | |
it was perfectly legal to hand your child over to whoever you wanted, | 0:31:11 | 0:31:15 | |
even a complete stranger. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
Social historian Dr Meg Arnot | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
has spent years researching these adverts. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
Tell me, why on earth are these | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
very lovely-sounding adverts such a problem? | 0:31:27 | 0:31:31 | |
OK, we have an advertisement here - | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
"Wanted, a child to adopt | 0:31:34 | 0:31:36 | |
"by respectable married couple who have no children of their own. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:41 | |
"Premium required, £30." | 0:31:41 | 0:31:43 | |
It could actually be a genuine couple who have no children, | 0:31:43 | 0:31:47 | |
and they want to adopt. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:50 | |
But there is some code there | 0:31:50 | 0:31:53 | |
that suggests to me that it might actually be something different. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:56 | |
They're saying they want a really quite significant premium of money | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
to be handed over with the child, that is they want £30. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:04 | |
They will take a child if you pay them 30 quid. | 0:32:04 | 0:32:06 | |
-Yes. -We could well be talking about a baby farmer, | 0:32:06 | 0:32:12 | |
a form of human trafficking. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
The term baby farmer was coined in the 19th century to describe people | 0:32:14 | 0:32:19 | |
who profited from taking on infants for a fee, | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
often with the intention of selling them on, | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
deliberately neglecting them, | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
or even to dispose of them altogether. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:29 | |
The railways made it possible for unmarried mothers to travel | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
far away from the people they knew and hand over their child | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
on a station platform, all the while remaining entirely anonymous. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:42 | |
The very last baby farmer to hang in Britain was Rhoda Willis, | 0:32:42 | 0:32:48 | |
who died in Wales in August 1907. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:53 | |
So, Rhoda Willis advertised for a child to adopt | 0:32:53 | 0:32:58 | |
and someone very quickly answered her ad with a newborn baby, | 0:32:58 | 0:33:02 | |
which she picked up at a railway station along with £8. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:07 | |
And then she caught the train back to her lodgings in Cardiff. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:12 | |
And then her landlady found the body in her room, | 0:33:12 | 0:33:15 | |
and she also confessed to actually killing the child on the train. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:21 | |
Gosh, before she even got home. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:22 | |
Before she even got home. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
And I have come across other cases where there are allegations | 0:33:24 | 0:33:29 | |
that these infants were killed on trains. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:32 | |
So another... The darkest elements. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
At the worst end of it is an utterly cynical, murdering trade. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:40 | |
What was most important to a woman with an illegitimate child | 0:33:40 | 0:33:45 | |
who she was trying to get rid of was that it was kept secret, | 0:33:45 | 0:33:49 | |
because her reputation was shredded by having an illegitimate child. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:55 | |
And the railways provided that secret environment... | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
Somewhere for nefarious activities of any sort, really. | 0:33:57 | 0:34:03 | |
A new place, rather paradoxically. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
It's no different from the internet. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
The internet is an amazing thing and this new flow of information | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
and communication across the world, | 0:34:14 | 0:34:16 | |
but part of the information that flows is criminal. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:19 | |
As the 19th century progressed, | 0:34:37 | 0:34:40 | |
new railway lines funded by entrepreneurs began to spread | 0:34:40 | 0:34:44 | |
to every corner of Britain. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:46 | |
Initially, there was little coordination in building | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
these new routes, but gradually they began to be linked up, | 0:34:49 | 0:34:53 | |
making long-distance rail travel possible. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:55 | |
Linking Scotland and England were two competing routes, | 0:34:58 | 0:35:01 | |
the West Coast Line and the more celebrated, | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
the East Coast Line. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:06 | |
The most famous locomotive to work this route has just undergone | 0:35:15 | 0:35:19 | |
ten years of restoration costing £4.5 million. | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
The Flying Scotsman, the most iconic steam engine of all time. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:30 | |
Look at the size of those wheels. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
They are phenomenal, aren't they? | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
Railway companies on the West Coast and East Coast lines were competing | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
to provide the quickest service. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
To do this, they needed ever more powerful locomotives. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:46 | |
So in 1923, one of the greatest engineers of the age, | 0:35:46 | 0:35:50 | |
Sir Nigel Gresley, gave us the Flying Scotsman, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:55 | |
the first locomotive to officially reach 100mph. | 0:35:55 | 0:35:58 | |
The journey from London to Edinburgh had taken ten and a half hours. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:05 | |
Now, behind the Flying Scotsman, it took just eight. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
Rail operations manager Noel Hartley is prepping it | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
to go back out on the mainline. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
Hi, Noel. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:16 | |
-Great to meet you. -Hi, are you all right? | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
The Flying Scotsman service travelled between Edinburgh and | 0:36:18 | 0:36:21 | |
London, but this locomotive enabled a nonstop service, is that right? | 0:36:21 | 0:36:26 | |
That's right. It had a few features to enable it to do that, | 0:36:26 | 0:36:29 | |
so it had enough coal to get from London to Edinburgh, or vice versa, | 0:36:29 | 0:36:33 | |
which was nine tonnes. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:36 | |
The loco also needed a huge amount of water. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:39 | |
It could carry 5,000 gallons, but that just wasn't enough. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:43 | |
To prevent it having to stop to refill, | 0:36:44 | 0:36:46 | |
there was an ingenious solution. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:48 | |
Water troughs were placed between the rails along the route. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:52 | |
By lowering a scoop into the trough, | 0:36:52 | 0:36:54 | |
the Flying Scotsman could collect an extra 12,000 gallons of water | 0:36:54 | 0:36:59 | |
without stopping. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:00 | |
Another issue was crew fatigue. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
Normally a driver would do four, five, six hours on a shift, | 0:37:07 | 0:37:11 | |
but because it was going to be an eight, nine-hour journey, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
they needed to change the crew halfway. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:16 | |
So they invented a corridor tender. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:19 | |
Main line steam engines pulled a tender where the coal and water | 0:37:20 | 0:37:24 | |
were stored, but this meant the driver and fireman were cut off | 0:37:24 | 0:37:27 | |
from the rest of the train. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:29 | |
Gresley's inclusion of a corridor through the tender meant | 0:37:29 | 0:37:32 | |
the crew could now pass from the footplate to the carriages behind. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:37 | |
-Can we go down there? -Of course you can. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
Let's go and have an explore. | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
It's a tight squeeze, Peter. Are you sure you're all right? | 0:37:41 | 0:37:44 | |
I've been laying off the doughnuts, Alex. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:47 | |
My goodness, look at this. | 0:37:47 | 0:37:49 | |
The introduction of a corridor enabled the Flying Scotsman | 0:37:50 | 0:37:54 | |
to make the first-ever nonstop service | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
between London and Edinburgh in 1928. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:59 | |
Sir Nigel Gresley designed these engines. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
It just emphasises the genius of the man. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:07 | |
And he really pushed the engines, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
pushed the boundaries of speed. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
He did, by using the simple innovation of a corridor. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
Swapping crews halfway meant the job of looking out for | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
more than 700 signals and shovelling nine tonnes of coal | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
could now be shared. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:25 | |
So we're going to see parts of the Flying Scotsman | 0:38:27 | 0:38:31 | |
that other enthusiasts can't reach. | 0:38:31 | 0:38:33 | |
There's one other innovation that made the Flying Scotsman | 0:38:35 | 0:38:38 | |
once the world's fastest locomotive. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:40 | |
But to get to it, you have to go under the engine. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
What you need to do is find something to hold on to | 0:38:47 | 0:38:49 | |
and pull yourself up between the frames. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:51 | |
-Don't break anything. -I'll try not to. -Including yourself. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:55 | |
Steam engines conventionally had two cylinders, | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
but Gresley's Flying Scotsman had three cylinders, | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
enabling it to run more smoothly with greater power. | 0:39:02 | 0:39:05 | |
There we go. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:07 | |
Raining oil. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:08 | |
And then you basically pull it open. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:12 | |
Whoa. | 0:39:12 | 0:39:14 | |
There's quite a bit, isn't there? | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
This is obviously one of the dirtiest jobs you have to do | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
on a steam engine, cleaning out the smoke. | 0:39:19 | 0:39:21 | |
If there's a dirty job that needs doing, Noel, Pete is your man. | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
Although once the pinnacle of engineering, | 0:39:26 | 0:39:28 | |
the Flying Scotsman is at its heart a steam locomotive, | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
still requiring long and complicated procedures to get it up and running. | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
Obviously it isn't a case of just turning an ignition key | 0:39:36 | 0:39:39 | |
and starting this thing up - | 0:39:39 | 0:39:40 | |
there's actually quite a warm-up phase, isn't there? | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
There is a warm-up phase. You've got around a 24-hour period of gently warming the engine through. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:47 | |
Before you even light the fire, you've got to check | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
inside the firebox to make sure nothing's leaking. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
So, can we have a look in the firebox? | 0:39:52 | 0:39:53 | |
Yep, you can. Just lower yourself down and then slide in there. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:58 | |
Get reminded of Winnie the Pooh doing this. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:03 | |
Oh, my goodness. You can just feel the residual heat here. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:08 | |
When was the loco last running? | 0:40:08 | 0:40:10 | |
Three days ago, so it's still reasonably warm. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:12 | |
-Yeah. -Wow. -It's amazing, the heat coming off of this. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:16 | |
-Yeah. -Three days later. | 0:40:16 | 0:40:17 | |
My goodness. This is what I imagine hell's like | 0:40:17 | 0:40:21 | |
-before they light the fires. -Yeah. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:23 | |
Lovely and warm in there, it really is. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
Oh, dear. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:30 | |
Once the fire box has been checked, | 0:40:30 | 0:40:33 | |
it must be loaded up with coal. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:34 | |
You've got to do it in one swing, | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
so start from there and then round and straight in. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:39 | |
-Right, OK. -You don't get momentum otherwise. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:42 | |
Yeah. Here he goes. | 0:40:42 | 0:40:44 | |
And... | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
Oh! | 0:40:46 | 0:40:48 | |
Without breaking the shovel, ideally. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:51 | |
It's a small hole. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:54 | |
It is a small hole. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:55 | |
I'm amazed you got through there. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:57 | |
At this rate, Peter, we won't get her out the station. | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
Put it near the fire-hole door until it gets burning properly. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:13 | |
What we need to do is throw it on top of that coal at the front. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
There we go. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:17 | |
Right, fire is in the firebox. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:20 | |
-We have fire. -OK, so the fire's going quite well now. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
-Yep. -So it's time to put a little bit more coal on top. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:26 | |
My go. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:28 | |
The pressure's on now. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:29 | |
Put your money where your mouth is. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
Put your money where your mouth is. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:36 | |
Whoa! | 0:41:38 | 0:41:39 | |
Revenge is a dish best served cold. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:44 | |
OK, so is it all right if I put some on there just so it goes | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
-in the right place? -Yeah, go on, then. -That's great. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:52 | |
-Let's watch the master at work. -Yeah. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:56 | |
You can see why in order to graduate onto a main line loco, | 0:41:59 | 0:42:03 | |
you had to work your way up - | 0:42:03 | 0:42:05 | |
you had to work your way through the shunting, the branch lines, | 0:42:05 | 0:42:09 | |
the whole shebang. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:10 | |
All of the oiling as well. | 0:42:10 | 0:42:11 | |
Knowing all the component parts so that you're prepared and trained | 0:42:11 | 0:42:17 | |
to take on a piece of technology which was, effectively, | 0:42:17 | 0:42:20 | |
the Concorde of its age. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:21 | |
Keeping passengers, goods and mail services running across | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
the rail network created a whole new array of jobs. | 0:42:26 | 0:42:29 | |
The railways employed a workforce of half a million. | 0:42:31 | 0:42:33 | |
From engine drivers and firemen... | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
..engineering crews... | 0:42:39 | 0:42:40 | |
..boiler makers... | 0:42:43 | 0:42:44 | |
..through to guards... | 0:42:46 | 0:42:47 | |
..signalmen and porters. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
But none of the trains could run if it wasn't for this one job... | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
The wheel tapper. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:07 | |
There is a ring there, isn't there? OK. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
It was the job of the wheel tapper to check the wheels | 0:43:10 | 0:43:13 | |
before each journey. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:15 | |
In the case of the Flying Scotsman and its carriages, | 0:43:16 | 0:43:19 | |
it would mean tapping over 120 wheels. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
A cracked wheel, like a cracked bell, | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
does not sound the same as one in good working order. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:28 | |
They do not ring true. | 0:43:31 | 0:43:32 | |
-That one rings quite nicely. -That's nice, isn't it? | 0:43:32 | 0:43:35 | |
That's ringing like a bell, really, can hear it echoing down the rail. | 0:43:35 | 0:43:38 | |
Yeah, that's right. This one. | 0:43:38 | 0:43:40 | |
-That's not so good, is it? -No, it's not quite so... | 0:43:41 | 0:43:44 | |
Doesn't ring quite like the other one, but I don't think | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
you would see the crack, well, unless it was really obvious. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:49 | |
Right. So, that's... | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
It might be just a hairline crack somewhere. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:54 | |
So that's the point of the tapping, | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
to find things you couldn't see with the naked eye? | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
Yeah, yeah. But the old wheel tappers, they'd be tuned to that. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
They'd know exactly how far they could go. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:04 | |
If that's what you're doing... | 0:44:04 | 0:44:05 | |
Cos that was an entire job, wasn't it, wheel tapping? | 0:44:05 | 0:44:07 | |
Oh, that's all they did, yeah. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
Rob Stinchcombe is showing Ruth how defects were recorded on a form | 0:44:10 | 0:44:15 | |
and clipped onto the wagon. | 0:44:15 | 0:44:16 | |
If it was a serious fault, they'd put a red card in it, | 0:44:18 | 0:44:20 | |
which means it's totally out of... | 0:44:20 | 0:44:22 | |
-Out of use. -Out of traffic. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
If a faulty wheel caused a train to break down or derail, | 0:44:27 | 0:44:31 | |
the network could come to a standstill, delaying goods, | 0:44:31 | 0:44:34 | |
passengers and mail. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:36 | |
So damaged wheels had to be sent to the workshop for repair. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:39 | |
Wheels such as those on the Flying Scotsman | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
are composed of a wheel pan and a separate steel tyre. | 0:44:44 | 0:44:47 | |
It meant that if the tyre cracked or wore out, | 0:44:51 | 0:44:54 | |
the whole wheel wouldn't need replacing. | 0:44:54 | 0:44:57 | |
At the South Devon railway workshop, | 0:44:57 | 0:44:59 | |
Ruth is helping engineer Richard Elliot | 0:44:59 | 0:45:01 | |
fit a new tyre to a train wheel. | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
First, the tyre is heated to make it expand. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
-This is the tyre itself? -That's the steel band, that's the tyre itself. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
That's the tyre itself. And this is just a fire all the way round it? | 0:45:10 | 0:45:14 | |
-Yep. -A gas fire in this case. | 0:45:14 | 0:45:16 | |
Basically, you've got about the same as your cooker or grill. | 0:45:16 | 0:45:20 | |
Oh, my goodness, yeah. | 0:45:20 | 0:45:22 | |
Yeah, so just a series of flames. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:24 | |
So all you're doing is warming her to about 220 degrees. | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
-Right. -Gas mark eight, for you. | 0:45:28 | 0:45:29 | |
Gas mark eight! | 0:45:29 | 0:45:31 | |
For about 25 minutes. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:33 | |
How do you know when it's cooked enough? | 0:45:33 | 0:45:36 | |
-Basically, she'll go a nice golden colour all over. -Right. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:39 | |
And the modern technology gives us things called Tempil sticks, | 0:45:39 | 0:45:43 | |
which are basically waxes that melt at specific temperatures. | 0:45:43 | 0:45:46 | |
The other method of doing it, more Victorian for you, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:50 | |
was basically to spit on it. | 0:45:50 | 0:45:52 | |
So will it do any harm if I try and spit? | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
Yeah, give it a go, see if you can. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:56 | |
-See how hot it is. -Oh, I missed. | 0:45:56 | 0:45:58 | |
My spitting is rubbish. | 0:45:58 | 0:46:00 | |
-We'll be getting you a glass of water. -I'm hopeless! | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
Oh, you're much better at it. Oh, look at that bubble jump. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:10 | |
-See the bubble jumps? -Yeah, right. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
-So we're after a little bit hotter yet. -So we're not quite there yet. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
We're not quite there. | 0:46:14 | 0:46:16 | |
Although some modern elements have been introduced, | 0:46:16 | 0:46:18 | |
the method is exactly as it would have been in the age of steam. | 0:46:18 | 0:46:22 | |
Obviously, our crayon is saying we're hot enough. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:25 | |
-Right. -And if we can spit on it... | 0:46:25 | 0:46:26 | |
It's rather dry cos it's a bit warm. | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
It just hits and forms into a ball and skids around on it. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
So we're probably about hot enough. | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
Let's go for it. Let's switch her off and fit her in. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
Once the tyre is expanded, the wheel pan is inserted. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
The tyre must fit within 1,000th of an inch | 0:46:44 | 0:46:47 | |
of the wheel diameter. | 0:46:47 | 0:46:48 | |
-Jeepers, this is so accurate. -Well, it's close. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:52 | |
The tyre is pressed and as it cools, | 0:46:52 | 0:46:55 | |
it shrinks onto the wheel pan. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:57 | |
Excellent. | 0:46:57 | 0:46:58 | |
-It's on! -It's on. One down, well done. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
That was really exciting, thank you. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:03 | |
-Well done. -I know you made it look so calm and professional, | 0:47:03 | 0:47:06 | |
but I found that pretty exciting actually. | 0:47:06 | 0:47:08 | |
Good, that. Right, cup of tea? | 0:47:08 | 0:47:10 | |
In the days of steam, the bigger the driving wheels, | 0:47:16 | 0:47:19 | |
the faster the loco could go. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:20 | |
On small locomotives, the wheels were around three feet in diameter. | 0:47:22 | 0:47:26 | |
But the Flying Scotsman's wheels are more than double this size. | 0:47:29 | 0:47:33 | |
It was a locomotive built for speed, a racehorse of the locomotive world. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:38 | |
With the loco now in full steam, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
it's ready to recreate the legendary route | 0:47:43 | 0:47:45 | |
connecting London and Edinburgh. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
-Don't make them like they used to, do they? -No. -They're so swish. | 0:47:48 | 0:47:51 | |
Amethyst, it's actually named. | 0:47:51 | 0:47:54 | |
Travelling in style, isn't it? | 0:47:54 | 0:47:56 | |
-Are we here? Are we all here? -In here? | 0:47:56 | 0:47:58 | |
Good stuff. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
With rival railway companies competing to attract passengers, | 0:48:07 | 0:48:11 | |
the range and quality of services they offered | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
was of paramount importance. | 0:48:14 | 0:48:15 | |
Head steward Keiran Flynn is training Alex | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
in the exacting standards expected by first class passengers | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
back in the 1930s. | 0:48:23 | 0:48:25 | |
Do we know when this started, then, serving food on trains? | 0:48:26 | 0:48:29 | |
-The first meal served on a train was 1878. -Right. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:32 | |
The papers at the time reported that the food was all lovely | 0:48:32 | 0:48:36 | |
and that even though the train was travelling at 60mph and the brakes | 0:48:36 | 0:48:39 | |
were applied, nothing was spilt, nothing was broken. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:42 | |
-Right, OK. -So they were quite impressed by that at the time. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:44 | |
So I've got quite a lot to live up to today. | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
I've got a feeling that's not going to be the situation for me today. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:51 | |
Keiran is showing Alex how to lay a table for a five course dinner. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:55 | |
-Our main plate here. -Yeah, that's right. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:57 | |
Our salad plate goes on top here. | 0:48:57 | 0:49:00 | |
-Yep. -OK. | 0:49:00 | 0:49:01 | |
And our side plate there? | 0:49:01 | 0:49:02 | |
-That's correct. -To the left, OK. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:04 | |
Now, cutlery? | 0:49:04 | 0:49:06 | |
Right-hand side of the knife, so you have your starter knife | 0:49:06 | 0:49:08 | |
on the outside, your main knife on the inside. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
Working in towards the main course. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
-Yep. And then these... -Yep. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:15 | |
-Grape scissors. -Grape scissors? | 0:49:15 | 0:49:18 | |
Right, this really is fine dining, isn't it? | 0:49:18 | 0:49:20 | |
So, if you had a bunch of grapes and you needed to get through the stem, | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
that's what they're there for, and they sit just like that. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:26 | |
Now, Keiran, | 0:49:26 | 0:49:27 | |
providing service in style in a regular restaurant is hard enough. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:31 | |
-Yep. -But how hard is it doing it on a train that's doing 60mph? | 0:49:31 | 0:49:35 | |
It can be quite tricky. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:36 | |
The main thing is just to not fight it. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:38 | |
If you try and fight against it, then you'll slam into the walls | 0:49:38 | 0:49:42 | |
a bit harder. Be prepared for it and just kind of try and bounce off | 0:49:42 | 0:49:45 | |
-whatever you land on. -Right, OK. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
And walk with your legs slightly wider apart, | 0:49:47 | 0:49:49 | |
sometimes helps as well. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:50 | |
-OK, so, a bit of a gait. -Yeah. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:51 | |
Sort of sea legs in some ways, isn't it? It's like having good sea legs. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:55 | |
Yeah. | 0:49:55 | 0:49:56 | |
In the 1920s and '30s, | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
the Flying Scotsman was the pride of the nation. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:02 | |
First-class passengers were expected to dress smartly. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:07 | |
Even Peter's made an effort. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:11 | |
Peter! | 0:50:11 | 0:50:13 | |
Oh, my goodness... White. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:15 | |
Yep. | 0:50:15 | 0:50:17 | |
-On a railway powered by steam. -Powered by steam. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:20 | |
How long are you going to stay white? | 0:50:20 | 0:50:22 | |
Long enough, because it's only for dining. | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
I'm not intending to go up there and shovel it. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:28 | |
I'm not particularly happy, Ruth. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:29 | |
Word on the grapevine - we've got a trainee waiter. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:32 | |
I've got my sea legs, my gait. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
Watching where I'm going. | 0:50:37 | 0:50:39 | |
To serve food on a swaying train without spilling it, | 0:50:42 | 0:50:45 | |
waiters were blindfolded and trained to walk along a white line | 0:50:45 | 0:50:49 | |
on the carriage floor as the train speeded along. | 0:50:49 | 0:50:52 | |
Oh, it nearly went! | 0:50:55 | 0:50:58 | |
It is quite a bumpy ride, this. | 0:50:58 | 0:51:01 | |
This is quite rocky-rolly. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:04 | |
-Are you all right? Can we go on this? -Let's go for this. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:08 | |
Can I have the salmon up as well, please, and the soup? | 0:51:08 | 0:51:10 | |
We're into a station in 15 minutes. | 0:51:12 | 0:51:14 | |
I need to have these customers fed. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:16 | |
Head chef Tony Keene is challenged with cooking high-quality | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
restaurant food in a tiny kitchen at over 80mph. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:25 | |
How many meals are you looking at preparing, then, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
on a train like this? | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
On average, we're doing around 250 diners across the different classes. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
250 diners? | 0:51:33 | 0:51:35 | |
Yeah. We cook a lot of the meals to order. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
It's 250 people, we'll do 1,500 plates of food today, | 0:51:37 | 0:51:43 | |
individual plates of food, | 0:51:43 | 0:51:44 | |
which all have to be washed by hand by my guys down there. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:48 | |
On the other side of the wall there's a pot wash. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
-The water slops all over the place. -Yeah. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
The crockery gets broken. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:54 | |
I just buy some more. | 0:51:54 | 0:51:57 | |
With space limited, | 0:51:57 | 0:51:59 | |
early Victorian dining cars had an open-air veranda at the kitchen end, | 0:51:59 | 0:52:03 | |
which was used for jobs like peeling potatoes. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
Inside, the food was cooked on an open fire. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:10 | |
You're cooking on gas, though. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:11 | |
I mean, imagine what it would have been like cooking on coke. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
I can't imagine. | 0:52:14 | 0:52:16 | |
The soot, the mess... | 0:52:16 | 0:52:17 | |
Respect goes out to those guys. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
We have operational issues along those lines but not as hardcore | 0:52:21 | 0:52:24 | |
as it would have been done in the past. | 0:52:24 | 0:52:26 | |
It would have been a proper workhouse in those days. | 0:52:26 | 0:52:28 | |
Yeah. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:29 | |
In 1925, passengers on British trains consumed | 0:52:29 | 0:52:34 | |
over 7.5 million meals. | 0:52:34 | 0:52:36 | |
On long-distance journeys, there were up to three sittings. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
Tables could be reserved by telegram. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
-Oh, wow. -This looks good. | 0:52:46 | 0:52:48 | |
That was inevitable. | 0:52:54 | 0:52:55 | |
Bit of a hot potato, that one, wasn't it? | 0:52:57 | 0:52:58 | |
The first Pullman dining cars, designed by American engineer | 0:52:58 | 0:53:02 | |
George Pullman, were made in Detroit workshops and shipped to Britain. | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
But the Flying Scotsman didn't just cater for diners, | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
they also tempted passengers with other luxury services, | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
from a cinema to a hairdressing salon. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
Passengers could also listen to music on headphones. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:20 | |
For the business traveller, there was even a Dictaphone service. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:26 | |
We've both dressed up for this experience. Do you think | 0:53:29 | 0:53:31 | |
that most of the people who were doing this for real were also, | 0:53:31 | 0:53:34 | |
you know, the well-heeled, the well-dressed? | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
London and Edinburgh were the two largest cities | 0:53:38 | 0:53:40 | |
in the British empire, certainly in terms of finance, | 0:53:40 | 0:53:43 | |
so it was such an important connection. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
Being able to communicate easily and quickly | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
between businesspeople must have been absolutely a godsend. | 0:53:48 | 0:53:53 | |
And you can just imagine the whole train, can't you, | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
buzzing with really important conversations, | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
as well as with people off on their hols to the Highlands of Scotland. | 0:53:58 | 0:54:02 | |
The Flying Scotsman is crossing the Royal Border Bridge - | 0:54:04 | 0:54:08 | |
the gateway to Scotland. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:09 | |
But in the restaurant car, there's a crisis - | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
the kitchen is running low on salmon. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:17 | |
Modern trains have the ability to call ahead to the next station | 0:54:19 | 0:54:22 | |
to stock up on supplies. | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
But not in the age of steam. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:26 | |
We're down to our last couple of salmon and there was no way | 0:54:27 | 0:54:31 | |
of communicating from the Flying Scotsman, or indeed, | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
any train in the period. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
So, if you wanted to get some more salmon and potatoes, or indeed, | 0:54:36 | 0:54:40 | |
if something had gone wrong on the train | 0:54:40 | 0:54:42 | |
and you needed to get the message out, | 0:54:42 | 0:54:44 | |
you had to write it down, | 0:54:44 | 0:54:47 | |
rip off the note, and then if you had your handy potato, | 0:54:47 | 0:54:52 | |
you could make an incision in the side, | 0:54:52 | 0:54:56 | |
fold it up, slip it in and as you pass a signal box, throw it out. | 0:54:56 | 0:55:01 | |
That potato's gone to the signal box, that signal box | 0:55:05 | 0:55:07 | |
will telegraph forward, and when we reach our next stop, | 0:55:07 | 0:55:10 | |
our supplies will be waiting for us. | 0:55:10 | 0:55:12 | |
Gooseberry jelly. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:30 | |
Would you like some jelly? | 0:55:30 | 0:55:32 | |
-RUTH LAUGHS -I knew you would! | 0:55:32 | 0:55:35 | |
I'm terribly sorry, sir. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:40 | |
I'm terribly sorry. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:42 | |
I'll just go and get some cream. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:45 | |
For the first time in nearly two decades, | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
the Flying Scotsman is arriving in Edinburgh. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
-That was great, wasn't it? -That was absolutely... | 0:56:07 | 0:56:10 | |
The Flying Scotsman enabling communication between | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
Edinburgh and London - journey of a lifetime. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:15 | |
-Wow. -I know! | 0:56:20 | 0:56:21 | |
We have just gone from London to Edinburgh on the Flying Scotsman. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:25 | |
This linking up of Britain at such speed, | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
you start to sort of really get that sense, don't you, | 0:56:28 | 0:56:31 | |
for being one country? | 0:56:31 | 0:56:32 | |
-It's a sort of galvanising of a nation... -Yes! | 0:56:32 | 0:56:34 | |
..that the railways afford us, isn't it? | 0:56:34 | 0:56:36 | |
-Absolutely. -Not just the ability to travel at great speed, but also | 0:56:36 | 0:56:39 | |
things like the telegraph as well, there's technological developments. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:42 | |
If you don't have the telegraph, you don't have instantaneous messaging, | 0:56:42 | 0:56:45 | |
therefore you don't have news, so to speak. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:47 | |
-Yeah. -And then you get the transportation of all that news | 0:56:47 | 0:56:51 | |
out from the big publishers to every corner of the country. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:55 | |
And then you can write to people about the news you've read... | 0:56:55 | 0:56:58 | |
-Yeah. -..and that goes on the mail. | 0:56:58 | 0:57:00 | |
-Yeah. -It's quite amazing. When you think, in our own lifetime, | 0:57:00 | 0:57:02 | |
the profound changes that we've seen because of the digital revolution. | 0:57:02 | 0:57:05 | |
-Yes. -This internet revolution, we can back-project those | 0:57:05 | 0:57:08 | |
-and we can see all those same elements, can't we? -I think so. | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
We can really understand what it must have been like for people | 0:57:12 | 0:57:15 | |
to move from that sort of pre-railway age - | 0:57:15 | 0:57:18 | |
everything in your life is very localised - to this sudden zoom | 0:57:18 | 0:57:22 | |
of connecting up. Very global. | 0:57:22 | 0:57:24 | |
But once you've got it, you forget how you lived without it. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
That's very true. That's very true. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:30 | |
You see people's lives change utterly. | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
It's still a remarkable achievement, though, | 0:57:33 | 0:57:35 | |
getting from London to Edinburgh in the speed we did today. | 0:57:35 | 0:57:38 | |
-Isn't it? -And in the style that we did today. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:41 | |
Well, speak for yourself. | 0:57:41 | 0:57:43 | |
Next time... | 0:57:43 | 0:57:45 | |
We see how branch lines revolutionised trade... | 0:57:45 | 0:57:48 | |
We did it! | 0:57:48 | 0:57:49 | |
..turning Welsh wool into a world-renowned business... | 0:57:49 | 0:57:52 | |
..putting Scotch whisky on the map... | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
This is a bit like being on a pogo stick in a sauna. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:00 | |
..and making Devon Britain's biggest producer of milk. | 0:58:01 | 0:58:05 | |
This is the railway milk industry at its source. | 0:58:05 | 0:58:09 |