Blackpool to Manchester Victoria Great British Railway Journeys


Blackpool to Manchester Victoria

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For Victorian Britons,

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George Bradshaw was a household name.

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At a time when railways were new,

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Bradshaw's guide book inspired them to take to the tracks.

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I'm using a Bradshaw's Guide

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to understand how trains transformed Britain -

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its landscape, its industry, society and leisure time.

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As I crisscross the country 150 years later,

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it helps me to discover the Britain of today.

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I've embarked on a new railway adventure -

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from Blackpool to Harwich.

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From resort to port, from sea to shining sea

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on a gentle slope from north western to eastern England.

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There will be some poetry as I traverse,

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and my Bradshaw's Guide will help me to glorify

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Victorian civil engineering and science.

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But my journey will also reveal some spectacular infrastructure

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being built now

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and transformational discoveries being made

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in Britain's present-day laboratories.

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My route will take me south-east across the country to East Anglia.

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It begins in Lancashire and heads across to

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the mighty northern conurbations of the industrial age.

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In Manchester, I'll join the route of

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the North Country Continental rail service

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and descend through the Fens to arrive in Essex,

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gateway to continental Europe.

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The first leg of my journey starts in Blackpool

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and takes me to neighbouring Fleetwood.

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From there I'll head south-east, stopping off near Bolton, before

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finishing in the manufacturing power house of Manchester.

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'On this trip...' Oh!

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'..there's terror on the tracks.'

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Only a skeleton staff today!

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'I play a small part in a monumental project...'

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Looks like you're a natural at this, Michael.

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Do they do it "weld done".

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'..and pay tribute to the ultimate sacrifice

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'that was made by thousands of rail workers.'

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And so it is perhaps understandable that when the call came in 1914

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that railwaymen were so prominent and so numerous in stepping forward.

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My first stop will be Blackpool,

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which Bradshaw's tells me is, "A pretty bathing place,

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"situated on a range of cliffs, much frequented by visitors,

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"possessing an excellent library and sea-bathing at all times of tide."

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Well, I don't know how many books

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have been borrowed in the last 150 years,

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but vast amounts of rock and candyfloss and fish and chips

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have been devoured - some of it unwisely -

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before taking the scariest of rides at Blackpool's Pleasure Beach.

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FAIRGROUND ORGAN MUSIC

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Like so many others, I'm here to experience the Pleasure Beach,

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a 42-acre cornucopia of edge-of-the-seat excitement

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that has entertained thrill-seekers for over a century.

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Andy Highgate, Assistant Operations Director at the Pleasure Beach,

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has agreed to help me explore the delights on offer by train.

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-Hello, Andy.

-Hello.

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What a lovely station, a beautiful little train.

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-Would you like to take a ride?

-I would love to.

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HORN SOUNDS

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How long have you had a railway?

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Well, the original Pleasure Beach Express was built in 1933.

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Beginning to hear the screams of people on your rides.

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MICHAEL CHUCKLES

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What makes it great is there's not that many railways

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where you get to see so many roller-coasters,

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ten roller-coasters on your route, and also dinosaurs as well,

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so that makes it a little bit unusual.

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The opening of a rail line to Blackpool in 1846

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gave manual workers in the Lancashire cotton mills

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an opportunity to enjoy seaside leisure.

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By the turn of the century, around two million people visited annually

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to experience the traditional British seaside pleasures

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of piers, donkey rides and fortune tellers.

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How did Blackpool Pleasure Beach start?

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There was a guy called William Bean,

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and in 1896, he ran a small collection of rides on the beach.

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And he had visited America

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and was inspired by a park called Coney Island near New York.

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It was his vision to bring some of the rides and attractions

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and that type of amusement park to the UK,

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which is what he did over the next 30 years.

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The amusement park was officially named

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Blackpool Pleasure Beach in 1905

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and grew quickly to include new rides

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such as the water chute and a wooden roller-coaster.

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Here we are passing some absolutely enormous structures.

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Tell me about these.

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Well, this one is the Big One, which, at one point,

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was actually the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world,

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and it's 235 feet tall.

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In 1928, William Bean's daughter, Lillian, married Leonard Thompson,

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and when his father-in-law died in 1929, he took over the park.

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Today, it's still run by the Thompson family.

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What have been the other important firsts

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during the history of Blackpool Pleasure Beach?

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Well, we had the world's first ghost train.

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The ghost train was basically introduced

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as what's called a pretzel ride - named after the layout of the track.

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Pretzels don't really mean anything to people in the UK.

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The suggestion of one of the ride operators

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that had seen a play called The Ghost Train,

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they changed the theme to a scary ride,

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and the ride was an instant success, and then copied all over the world.

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So every other ghost train that you see

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has come from our original ghost train here.

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I am about to experience the most incorporeal thing on tracks,

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the most ethereal of all railway journeys,

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the most phantasmagorical of all choo-choos.

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Shudder!

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Only a skeleton staff today.

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Ooh, very nasty things!

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GROWLING Argh! Didn't expect that one.

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Oh!

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SIREN WAILS

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An oncoming train!

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Argh!

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TRAIN HORN BLARES

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Ah!

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Definitely the most scared I ever want to be on a train.

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It was brilliant.

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From Blackpool, my journey takes me nine miles

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up the coast to Fleetwood.

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The railway between the two towns closed in 1970,

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but I can still make tracks

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by boarding the much-loved Blackpool tramway.

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Blackpool had one of the world's first electric tramways from 1885,

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and unlike any other city in mainland Britain,

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it's kept its trams ever since.

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-Hello, Bill.

-Good afternoon, Michael.

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You must be a happy man driving this wonderful historic car.

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It's an absolute thrill to be able to

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drive something over 100 years old and making the passers-by smile.

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As a frequent visitor to Blackpool, at least in the old days,

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what surprised me on this visit

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is to see the absolutely modern, brand-new trams.

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How do you feel about them?

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They're fast, clean, efficient, very well-run.

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-I still prefer the old ones, Michael.

-I bet you do!

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Fleetwood was the first planned town of the Victorian era.

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Its sheltered river mouth location

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was ideal for a port and holiday resort.

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Work on the town and a rail link to Preston began simultaneously,

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and in 1840, the line opened.

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Fleetwood Harbour became the starting point

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for journeys across the Irish Sea,

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and its port grew to be one of the country's largest.

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"Fleetwood, on the mouth of the River Wyre,

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"built on what was formerly a rabbit warren.

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"A modern town which had no existence before 1836.

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"Now a commodious harbour from which steamers go to Belfast."

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"On my arrival, I'm greeted by a salty breeze."

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HE SNIFSS

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"Wonderful for clearing the sinuses!"

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Today, the town's sea-faring legacy lives on in its most famous export -

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Fisherman's Friend lozenges.

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I'm meeting Tony Lofthouse,

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the great grandson of founder James Lofthouse.

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Tony, how does the story of Fisherman's Friend begin?

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It started 1865

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when my great grandfather moved down from Lancaster to Fleetwood

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and opened an apothecary shop, and he traded from there.

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And as the trawlers went further and further from Fleetwood,

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they went into colder and colder weather,

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and the trawlermen got infections of the chest.

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So he created menthol and eucalyptus lozenges for them.

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No name on it at all,

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but it was given the name by the people of Fleetwood.

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The trawlermen would come in and say,

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"Could I have some of my friends, please?"

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And the public would say,

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"I want some of those lozenges the fishermen have."

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-So, you're making it sound like a very local product...

-Yes, it was.

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-..for trawlermen in Fleetwood.

-Yes.

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My grandfather, father, uncle were

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only interested in the chemist shop side of it, really.

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They weren't bothered about marketing at all.

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It was only when we opened the, what we call the summer shops,

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on the promenade in Fleetwood,

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we used to get the holiday workers coming from the cotton towns.

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They'd buy the product, go home and couldn't find it,

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so they'd write to us.

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And my wife collated the letters into towns

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and then set off with a box full of loose packets

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and picked a post office or another chemist shop

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and said, "Look, if you will stock this product,

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"I will go home and write to these people

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"to say they can get them from you," and that's how it started.

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It seems to me that, in the history of your company,

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-you owe quite a lot to your wife, Doreen.

-Absolutely.

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She's always full of ideas and bringing something new in.

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And what position does Doreen occupy now?

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She's chairman of the company - and quite rightly so!

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The company has grown to employ 380 people in Fleetwood.

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96% of their lozenges go abroad,

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and they've won three Queen's Awards for export.

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-How many lozenges do you make?

-We make about 23 million a day.

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MICHAEL LAUGHS

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-Gosh, that's a lot of sore throats being dealt with.

-Yes!

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-Hello, Duncan.

-Hello, Michael.

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Another member of the family shows me the factory floor

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where the lozenges are made.

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Duncan, a beautiful, pristine environment.

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It's as though there's a mist in the air,

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I feel my eyes watering slightly and the smell penetrating my nose.

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Yes, I think that's probably the menthol

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that's causing that sensation for you.

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A rather surprising sight to me, Duncan -

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these lumps of brown product.

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What's happening at this point?

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Well, once the ingredients have been mixed together,

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the product then comes along this conveyer belt

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and goes into a moulder.

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The moulder makes the shape of the lozenge,

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which are then transferred onto trays.

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The trays are then onto palettes

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and they go into a drying oven for anything up to seven days.

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We have two identical lines to this,

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each producing five tonnes of product every day.

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How similar is this to the first product

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that was produced by your ancestors?

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It's very, very similar indeed.

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The only difference is now we do a moulding process,

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where, previously, the product was stamped out.

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That's the only difference.

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I think your ancestors, though, would've been just amazed

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by this degree of production and automation.

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I'm sure they would, yes.

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Hello. Have you worked for Fisherman's Friend long?

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Coming up to three years this year.

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Anyone in your family work for the company?

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Yeah, my grandma. She's been here 23 years.

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Do you ever get used to the sensation

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in your eyes and your nose?

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You get used to it now, yeah. Now that I've been here for a while.

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-Very nice to talk to you.

-Yeah, you too.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

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The smell of menthol and eucalyptus is pervasive.

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But the range of tastes around the world demands additional flavouring.

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-Which one is the original?

-That is the original, there.

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Thank you very much.

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Quite a strong smell, but of course,

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nothing by comparison with the factory floor.

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-Quickly it begins to release eucalyptus...

-Yes.

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..and menthol.

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Mm. Very effective.

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I'm sure, if I were on a trawler, I would find that very efficacious.

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-And what else should I try?

-I'd like you to try this one.

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This is a rather unusual one.

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This is a salmiak variant

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that sells particularly well in Scandinavia.

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It's liquorice!

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I hate liquorice!

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I think you must be in the minority

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because it's one of our bestselling variants, actually.

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With head cleared, I seek out my bed for the night.

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Why have I chosen the North Euston Hotel

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for the first night of my journey?

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I'll give you one guess.

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It's in my Bradshaw's!

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The hotel's grandeur illustrates railway history.

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When it opened in 1841,

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there were trains from London, but not onwards to Scotland.

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Passengers would therefore overnight in Fleetwood

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before taking the ferry to Ardrossan for the train to Glasgow.

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In 1846, a direct line to Scotland opened,

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so the North Euston's heyday was brief.

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I'm ready to resume my journey east to Manchester.

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George Bradshaw often marvelled at

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the triumphs of the civil engineers of his day

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in both canals and railways.

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But they did leave some gaps,

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for example, between Victoria and Piccadilly stations in Manchester.

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I want to see how modern-day engineers cope with those issues

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and how they live up to the standards of their forebears.

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I'm travelling 40 miles south east to Lostock near Bolton,

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where I will see a railway bridge taking shape.

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When complete, it will be part of an £85 million project

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called the Ordsall Chord.

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300 metres of new track will allow trains to run

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between Victoria and Piccadilly stations in Manchester.

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It's part of an investment of more than £1 billion

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in the railways in the north of England.

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Project manager Jarrod Hulme shows me the bridge

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that will form a vital part of the Ordsall Chord.

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For whatever reason, the Victorians did not link

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Piccadilly and Victoria stations in Manchester.

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What advantages do you have over the Victorians?

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I'd say the biggest key factor is the technology

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that has come about over the last 20 years or so.

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We design everything within a 3-D world, and then we transmit

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that onto the shop floor for the guys to actually use.

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They'll measure things with laser-guided technology,

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rather than spirit levels and plumb bob that the Victorians used to use.

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-To extraordinary levels of accuracy.

-Yes.

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You're looking at between one and two millimetres.

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-Have you developed any Victorian engineering heroes?

-Yes, I have.

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I'd say Brunel's probably one of my favourite heroes.

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Some of the structures he's done,

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in the timescale and the tools that they had,

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I find absolutely unbelievable.

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The Ordsall Chord development

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crosses the world's first modern railway line,

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built by George Stephenson between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830.

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Jarrod, it looks like Meccano on the mega-scale.

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Yeah, this is a full-scale trial erection

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of one of the structures on Ordsall Chord called Trinity Way.

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Basically, what you're looking at here is how we make sure

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that the actual items fit together before they get to site.

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The main span girders that you can see on the left and the right,

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they're fabricated in another area of the bay.

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Then they're brought to this particular area

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where they're assimilated into the final span position.

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The centrepiece of the Ordsall Chord will be the network arch bridge,

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which some have compared to a squashed tennis racket,

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with a distinctive swoosh at one end.

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The ground-breaking design is destined to become

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a Manchester landmark.

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How do you feel, being in your case,

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a very significant part of this extraordinary transformation

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in the middle of Manchester?

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I'm a local boy, so having the fact that you can actually see this

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on a daily basis when you go into the city,

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it's going to be an iconic structure that everybody gets to see,

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so, yeah, really proud to be part of it.

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The Victorians would be amazed to see

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the technology at Jarrod's disposal.

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But they'd be very familiar with the skills involved

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in constructing the bridge.

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Hello.

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-My name's Michael.

-This is Steve.

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-How do you do, Steve?

-Fantastic.

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-What's going on here, then?

-OK, so this is the welding process.

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This is a main span girder for a River Irwell arch.

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Must be operating, obviously, at a very high temperature

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cos, actually I can feel that there's heat

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all the way through this vast piece of metal.

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Steve is using a process called submerged arc welding.

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This produces slag as a waste material.

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I may as well make myself useful.

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Steve, my mother taught me to vacuum clean.

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-Can I have a go at that?

-Certainly.

-Thank you very much.

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Let me have that dooberry as well. There we go.

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-Sucking up all the bits of flux here.

-Perfect.

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Keep the place nice and tidy.

0:20:070:20:09

And then the other thing you do is you chip these bits off...

0:20:100:20:13

Looks like you're a natural at this, Michael.

0:20:160:20:18

My mother taught me well.

0:20:180:20:20

Do you think it's "weld done"?

0:20:200:20:22

When, in decades to come, I travel along the Ordsall Chord,

0:20:240:20:28

I shall think back to Steve and the vacuum cleaner.

0:20:280:20:31

I'm re-joining the train at Lostock

0:20:320:20:35

and travelling 60 miles to Salford station,

0:20:350:20:38

close to where the bridge is to be assembled.

0:20:380:20:40

The plan to build a new link across Manchester has been controversial

0:20:430:20:48

because it interferes with George Stephenson's bridge

0:20:480:20:51

across which Robert Stephenson's rocket locomotive has so often run.

0:20:510:20:56

And certainly we need to preserve our old heritage,

0:20:560:21:00

but what better tribute to those railway pioneers

0:21:000:21:04

than that today, nearly 200 years later,

0:21:040:21:07

their technology of metal wheels on metal rails

0:21:070:21:11

is still being used, refined and developed?

0:21:110:21:14

When finished, the new bridge will be taken to Manchester

0:21:200:21:24

and assembled on-site.

0:21:240:21:25

I've come to meet Alan Parker,

0:21:250:21:27

programme manager for Network Rail, at the construction zone,

0:21:270:21:30

just south of Salford station

0:21:300:21:32

and to the west of Manchester's city centre.

0:21:320:21:35

It's an amazing sight, isn't it?

0:21:380:21:39

Railway line, canal, river, several bridges - complicated!

0:21:390:21:43

Where are you going to put your new railway line?

0:21:430:21:45

Directly over where we're standing now.

0:21:450:21:47

We've already done quite a lot of work to link Piccadilly with Victoria

0:21:470:21:50

in earlier stages of the job.

0:21:500:21:52

This is the final link which takes two existing viaducts,

0:21:520:21:55

which one comes from Victoria to Liverpool,

0:21:550:21:58

the other one links Piccadilly through to Liverpool as well.

0:21:580:22:00

This is a link which joins the two together,

0:22:000:22:03

allowing the railway to run from Victoria to Piccadilly

0:22:030:22:06

for the first time.

0:22:060:22:07

When the Ordsall Chord is completed,

0:22:070:22:09

there will be two new fast trains per hour

0:22:090:22:12

between Manchester Victoria and Liverpool.

0:22:120:22:15

A new direct service will run

0:22:150:22:17

across Manchester city centre to the airport

0:22:170:22:20

and faster journey times to Hull, Newcastle and across the north

0:22:200:22:24

will be possible.

0:22:240:22:25

Where is the famous George Stephenson bridge?

0:22:270:22:29

Stephenson's bridge at the moment is hidden away,

0:22:290:22:31

behind this bridge, behind a further bridge.

0:22:310:22:34

And if you look closely underneath the bottom of the bridge,

0:22:340:22:37

it's two stone arches with a central pier in the river.

0:22:370:22:40

We're going to reveal the whole of Stephenson's bridge

0:22:400:22:43

for the first time since round about the 1830s, 1840s.

0:22:430:22:46

So we're going to fully refurbish the external faces of the bridge

0:22:460:22:49

and bring it back to an original condition.

0:22:490:22:51

A bit of a renaissance going on for the railways in the north?

0:22:510:22:53

I think so. It's a good time for the railway in Manchester.

0:22:530:22:56

-Exciting?

-Very exciting, yeah.

0:22:560:22:58

Bradshaw's says that, "The Liverpool and Manchester line

0:23:000:23:04

"is pre-eminently entitled to rank as the pioneer

0:23:040:23:08

"of those stupendous undertakings

0:23:080:23:10

"which have given a new stimulus to

0:23:100:23:12

"the mechanical and architectural genius of the age."

0:23:120:23:16

Mechanical and architectural flair are key today.

0:23:160:23:20

All my rail journeys using my Bradshaw's guide

0:23:270:23:29

are really about historic memories

0:23:290:23:32

but I'm now on my way to Manchester Piccadilly station

0:23:320:23:35

for a very special act of remembrance.

0:23:350:23:38

Railways and their workers played a vital role

0:23:420:23:45

in the Great War of 1914 to 1918.

0:23:450:23:50

Over 19,000 railwaymen lost their lives.

0:23:500:23:54

Manchester Piccadilly used to have a memorial honouring

0:23:540:23:57

87 fallen railwaymen of the London And North Western Railway.

0:23:570:24:02

It was dedicated in 1920

0:24:020:24:05

but mislaid when the station was redeveloped in the 1960s.

0:24:050:24:10

Train managers for Virgin Trains Andy Partington and Wayne McDonald

0:24:100:24:14

decided to rectify the loss with a new monument,

0:24:140:24:17

and after many hours of research,

0:24:170:24:20

they've discovered the biographies of 75 of the 87 men listed.

0:24:200:24:25

What gave you the idea, not only of recreating the memorial,

0:24:250:24:30

but actually investigating the people whose names were on it?

0:24:300:24:34

I think it's important that they're not just a name on a memorial.

0:24:340:24:37

They were somebody's father, son, brother,

0:24:370:24:39

and they were individuals.

0:24:390:24:41

It's interesting, as railwaymen, to learn.

0:24:410:24:45

Although the railway is different today than 100 years ago,

0:24:450:24:48

it's more or less getting to know them personally,

0:24:480:24:50

that's how we've felt as we've progressed through this project.

0:24:500:24:54

How did you set about your researches?

0:24:540:24:56

Mostly through sites like the Commonwealth War Grave site,

0:24:560:24:59

family tree sites.

0:24:590:25:01

And then, obviously, the release of the headstone registers

0:25:010:25:04

by the Commonwealth War Graves last year.

0:25:040:25:06

Answered a lot of questions and let us narrow down

0:25:060:25:09

that that's definitely the person we are looking at.

0:25:090:25:12

I'm deeply honoured to have been asked to give a speech

0:25:120:25:15

at the unveiling ceremony.

0:25:150:25:17

Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Lieutenant and ladies and gentlemen.

0:25:170:25:22

The men who joined the railways during the 19th century

0:25:220:25:26

and in the first years of the 20th century

0:25:260:25:29

were typically brave and resourceful people

0:25:290:25:32

because the railways were dangerous.

0:25:320:25:35

And they were also people

0:25:350:25:37

who were strongly dedicated to public service.

0:25:370:25:40

And so it is perhaps understandable, that when the call came in 1914,

0:25:400:25:44

that railwaymen were so prominent and so numerous in stepping forward.

0:25:440:25:50

I want to say how very delighted I am that

0:25:500:25:53

the First World War memorial here at Manchester Piccadilly station

0:25:530:25:56

is now to be restored.

0:25:560:25:58

APPLAUSE

0:26:010:26:04

TRUMPETER PLAYS LAST POST

0:26:230:26:25

-Who is in this photograph?

-It's our grandad. Joseph Daly.

0:26:290:26:34

-A day you'll remember?

-Absolutely, yes.

0:26:340:26:36

-Fantastic.

-It's very nice.

0:26:360:26:39

The memorial includes the name of my late husband's uncle.

0:26:390:26:42

A couple of years before my husband fell ill,

0:26:420:26:45

he came in to Manchester to see if he could find the memorial

0:26:450:26:49

and he was really upset to find it had gone.

0:26:490:26:51

So I'm here to represent my husband,

0:26:510:26:53

and I'm so sad that he's not here today.

0:26:530:26:55

George and Robert Stephenson left their mark on Manchester

0:27:100:27:15

when the world's first trains ran to and from the city

0:27:150:27:19

while Queen Victoria was still a child.

0:27:190:27:21

Today, Manchester is being transformed by new lines,

0:27:230:27:27

proving that this 19th-century technology

0:27:270:27:30

can still be exploited in the 21st.

0:27:300:27:34

The railways attracted a particular sort of man -

0:27:340:27:37

tough, resourceful and duty-bound.

0:27:370:27:41

And from amongst their ranks,

0:27:410:27:42

there stepped forward some of the most effective volunteers

0:27:420:27:46

for the First World War.

0:27:460:27:48

Britain owes them a debt.

0:27:480:27:51

'Next time, I discover Victorian grandeur deep underground...'

0:27:540:27:58

This is known as the cathedral,

0:27:590:28:01

which has this vaulted cast-iron arch.

0:28:010:28:03

This is a monumental piece of work.

0:28:030:28:05

'..find my travels lit by starlight...'

0:28:050:28:08

Lift it, please! Let there be light.

0:28:080:28:11

Bravo. MICHAEL APPLAUDS

0:28:110:28:14

'..and take a miniature detour.'

0:28:140:28:15

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