The Fishing Line Steam Days

BBC Four Collections -

archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this Collection, Gary Boyd-Hope

has selected programmes celebrating Britain's steam railway legacy.

More programmes on this theme, and other BBC Four Collections,

are available on BBC iPlayer.

TRAIN HORN BLOWS

An almost forgotten kind of Scotch mist has come back to the Glens

after 20 years of silence.

The smoke and steam of a Black 5 engine.

Most people would think you were mad

if you told them there was still a regular mainline steam service

on British Rail,

but for the last two summers the diesels on the West Highland Line,

from Fort William to Mallaig, have been partly replaced by steam.

They've even repainted the coaches their old pre-war colours -

cream and green.

Just for a while, history has gone into reverse.

I get the feeling that such quirky things

couldn't happen nearer to London,

but up here, far from head office,

they like to run things their own way.

In the 1930s, the line carried thousands of weekend trippers

escaping from smoky Glasgow and Clydeside into the country.

After the war, when excursions were restarted in 1949,

most of those trippers had taken to the roads.

Yet, although the line has never made a profit, it still lives on.

Today the summer steam trains

are fuller than perhaps they've ever been.

But, it wasn't so much tourists and travellers

that the line to Mallaig was built to carry,

it was something much more basic - fish.

And not just any old fish, one kind of fish in particular.

Now, here's a riddle, why is a steam engine like a herring?

That's right, it's because they were once both the commonest things

in the world and they are now both almost extinct.

Mallaig was actually created by the railways

and through the railways grew to be the largest herring port in Europe

up till about 20 years ago.

This year not one single herring has been landed in Mallaig so far.

The main fish coming here now is the crayfish, or langoustine,

which is taken away, not by rail any more, but by lorry

and driven 1,000 miles or more down to the south of Spain

where they get the best prices.

So, if you're on holiday in the Costa Brava

and you have a plate of large prawns they've probably come from here.

Before the trains came,

the 30-mile journey from Fort William to the coast

had to be done in a horse-drawn coach

bumping crazily over rough cart tracks.

It took seven-and-a-half hours to get there,

so long that you could never get back the same day.

The railway reduced this time to little over one hour,

an improvement of something like 80%.

It was almost as if balloons had been replaced overnight by Concorde,

with nothing else at all in between.

It was here at Corpach, near Fort William,

on January the 21st 1897, that Lady Margaret Cameron of Locheil,

who was not just a lady but also the wife of one of the directors,

used this silver spade to turn the first sod in the Mallaig railway.

And it was the last really hard work she did,

because she was replaced almost immediately by 3,500 navvies,

who worked for the next four hard years to complete the work

that she had so bravely started.

But, they did finish one year ahead of schedule.

Mallaig wasn't just reached by the railway,

it was built by the railway.

The railway company looked at a map of Scotland

for a good place for a fishing port,

put its finger on a tiny, nearly uninhabited dot

and said, "We'll build a town, a harbour and a pier, here."

It wasn't just fishing vessels that came to call at the new harbour,

it became a great jumping-off place

for the ferries over the sea to Skye and Lewis, as it is today.

You could say the first big place

down the line from Mallaig is Glasgow,

but they wouldn't agree with you at Fort William,

the railway capital of the West Highlands,

where most of the engines were always kept.

ARCHIVE: Shed 65J, dock 6, class 5MT Stanier Black 5 from the old LMS.

One modified K4 name McCallum Mhor. Five K1s, Peppercorns design.

Two K2s usually based at Mallaig. And as yard pilots, two J36s.

All to be maintained and serviced, engines to coal.

And some to repair.

What engine am I getting today, Jim?

1784, Johnny.

The engines leave Fort William shed.

To work south to Glasgow.

And west to Mallaig.

And we shall be working west to Mallaig today

behind this 1947 vintage Black 5.

Black 5s were LMS engines,

so they wouldn't have been seen up this LNER line in the old days.

This particular one is the only one of the many Black 5s

to be fitted with the Stephenson link motion,

that complicated series of connecting rods.

I wonder if that makes it a one-off special or a failed experiment.

'Well, either way I'd give my eye teeth

'for a chance to travel on the footplate.'

- Another time. - Thanks.

'Well, at least I've still got my eye teeth.'

Our driver today is veteran Fort William man Willie Corrigan.

There's something special about driving a Black 5.

Quite good engines to drive and the fellas look after them pretty well.

The Black 5s are all right,

but the K2's really the engine for Mallaig.

The Black 5s are just a wee bit high in the wheel for the Mallaig line.

They used them sometimes for ballast working

but they were never on the Mallaig line

because it was a turntable end, they were too long for that.

This train, anyway, it's just up and down.

But they used to be up and down maybe two or three times a day.

Not so much hard work for the driver,

but quite hard for the fireman, shovelling coal and that.

But, oh, it's quite an innocent line.

It's a lovely run

and I've been doing it for the best part of 40 years.

I've not got tired of it yet.

MILES: We come out of Fort William under the shadow of Ben Nevis

and prepare to leave the first section of single track.

Only one engine is ever allowed onto a section of single track,

for obvious reasons.

And the driver is entitled to be there

only if he has the token for that stretch of line.

As he leaves the section

he hands over the token to the Banavie signalman

and collects the new one.

In 1936, a luxury train, called the Northern Belle,

ran right round Britain.

When it got to Fort William

the passengers were given the choice between two excursions -

a motor trip to Loch Ness to see the monster

or a rail trip past Glenfinnan.

Only two people on the whole train chose to go to Loch Ness.

Now, the attraction of going to Glenfinnan

was not to see the famous monument

of Bonnie Prince Charlie's first landing,

which, after all, commemorates a great Scottish failure.

Of course, the Scots have always had a great weakness for

romanticising their own failures.

Most of their famous battles are actually defeats.

From the massacre of Glencoe

up until the last time they entered for the World Cup.

And they're not always so quick to glamorise their successes.

What the passengers on the Northern Belle were off to see that day

was a great Scottish success, the Glenfinnan Viaduct,

the brain child of a young Glasgow contractor, Robert McAlpine.

Today Glenfinnan, tomorrow the world, and McAlpines are still up

with the leaders in modern construction and engineering.

'So, I asked Bill McAlpine, Robert's great-grandson,

'to give me the low-down on his ancestor,

'the man known to one and all as Concrete Bob.'

If I'm right, this was the longest concrete viaduct in the world

when it was built by your great-grandfather.

Yes.

Why did he build it in concrete, why not stone?

Well, he was a great enthusiast for concrete

and here he had an opportunity to use it,

because the engineer designed the viaduct

and usually specified what it was to be made of,

but on this occasion he persuaded the engineer

that concrete would be a good material.

You can see it's still standing,

there's a train going over at the moment.

- It's not falling on us. - Not a tremor here.

HOOTER SOUNDS

Was that actually very revolutionary at the time?

Well, it was, because it was a new material

and nobody likes change very much.

But on this particular contract

it proved to be very satisfactory material,

because to move masonry, to get masonry and move it up here,

would be very, very expensive.

And so, concrete, which was created by finding quarries

and grinding up the rock,

or using the rock which came out of the tunnels,

mixing it with cement was an ideal material.

Stone perhaps looks better, although in the environment

and looking at this viaduct today actually in concrete,

it fits in with the surrounding scenery much better.

These great solid piers, are they in fact solid?

I believe they are hollow in the centre.

I've always been brought up with the story that on one occasion

they were filling them,

they had built the four walls and they were filling it with rubble

and a horse and cart was backing to tip

and he just went a bit too far

and the horse and cart went down one of these massive piers

and there was nothing to be done, so they just carried on filling.

They're still there?

Whether that's true or not I wouldn't like to... I rather disbelieve it.

An idea the Mafia later took up.

I think so, yes. I think the man stayed up but the horse and cart..

Apart from that if somebody came to McAlpines today

and said, build us a viaduct out of concrete,

would you do it in a very different method?

Um, I don't...

Yes, it would be reinforced concrete,

in that there would be steel in the concrete

and it would probably be not quite so massive and so on.

Although, if you look at it, 100 years and it's still there,

this is probably a pretty good way of doing it.

You think this is good for all time?

I think so, should be good for another 100 years, yes.

Well, the line may still be here in 100 years' time

and Glenfinnan Station may be still open for business,

but it's very doubtful if there will still be a signalman at Glenfinnan.

Four bells given.

CLANGING

Four bells received.

And another brass token from the Victorian one-armed bandit

to hand on as a passport for the driver

to go through the next stretch.

But as he goes through the old routine of ringing through

for permission to let the train through,

he is already aware that he is the last signalman left hereabouts.

The latest plan, apparently,

is not only to do away with the traditional token system,

but also to get rid of signals altogether

and to give the drivers radio sets

so they can report their position to Fort William

and ask for clearance to continue.

CB on trains, in fact.

The one thing they can probably never replace

is the man on the engine.

On the contrary, it means even more reliance will be placed

on the local driver and his knowledge of the line.

MAN: It's a hard line to know.

Well, you've got years of it.

Especially at night, in the dark, it's pitch black,

you've really got to know the line to drive an engine up there.

MILES: Ever since the train left Fort William,

it has been climbing almost all the way.

You have to start again from Glenfinnan

on a gradient of one in 50, which is a test for any driver

and a lot of hard work for the fireman.

It's an extraordinary thing,

but almost all famous lines start low down,

go up in the middle and then come down again at the end.

The Settle - Carlisle line does.

The Orient Express does.

And so does the Mallaig line.

And unless you're actually driving the train,

the climb to the top is the best bit.

There's a feeling of heroic effort,

masses of steam and smoke, and by far the best photographs.

But if you are driving the train you get a different view,

one of setting off into the unknown

however well you think you do know it.

MAN: You go away on a train, so you don't know when you're getting back.

One time in 1947, we left on Tuesday and we never got back until Friday.

The trains were stuck in the snow in the West Highlands.

It was really hard work

and it wasn't only that, you couldn't get food anywhere.

There was no place to get a cup of tea

once your piece ran out, you know.

As the train eases its way over the top

and starts the long descent to the sea,

it goes through what the guide books like to call "glorious scenery".

But glorious scenery is a phrase

that strikes fear into the heart of any railway engineer,

cos all it means to him is immense construction difficulties.

When Bill McAlpine's great uncle, Malcolm McAlpine,

was in charge of building this section of the line,

he found that the stone he was tunnelling through

was even tougher than the machinery he had available.

BILL MCALPINE: Because on a line like this you have to start

in a whole lot of places

and you start at the most difficult place.

You start at Glenfinnan Viaduct, and of course, digging the rock tunnels.

There was a good story about that

because Malcolm had to go to the dentist in Glasgow

and we'd been having terrible trouble

because we had these new compressed air drills from America

and we priced the job on using these and the tremendous progress.

And when we got up here

the cost of coal for the steam-driven compressors was enormous

because you couldn't get the coal to the line.

You could bring up by ship

and then it had to come by horse and cart over all this terrible country.

And we were losing money and the company was going bankrupt.

And he went to have his teeth drilled in Glasgow

and the dentist had a water-driven drill.

So he said, if he can drill my teeth with water

I can tunnel rock with water.

And so, they dammed up one of these lochs,

had a water turbine to produce electricity,

drove the compressors electrically

and had a pipeline tapped off for compressed air

all the way along the line and drilled.

- It actually worked as well? - Yes, tremendous success.

So there's a use in going to the dentist after all.

That's right, sometimes!

The opening of the line came too late to help many of the inhabitants

who had already been driven out by the Highland Clearances,

the idea behind which was that sheep were more important than men.

When the Crofters Commission reported to the Parliament

in London 100 years ago,

they revealed a state of misery and poverty in the West Highlands

which nowadays we would call Third World conditions.

Even Parliament was stunned into action

and the Mallaig extension became the first line in Britain

ever to get government help.

Not that this was much consolation to the local people

who had already lived a life of deprivation and suffering.

# Ah, for the glens are lyin' bare

# And the wee bit farm deserted... #

During the Clearances men's homes

were burnt and pulled down around them to drive them off.

Many of them had to make new lives,

knowing they would never see Scotland again.

# Grows in rows o'er the broken hearted

# Black is the wood on the roofance was braw

# But blacker still is your heart, Victoria

# Sent your men untae our glens

# You'll need the Good Lord

# Lookin' o'er ye

# Many hae gane tae Americay

# You burnt their hames and garred them wander

# Gor a' would have stayed wi' the de'il himsel'

# As bide an hour wi' the cruel Gillanders. #

MAN: Oh, the railway made an immense difference to this part of the world.

When it came through here in about 1900,

it opened up the whole of the countryside

between Glasgow and Fort William

and then Fort William to Mallaig.

And they reckon that the railway made Mallaig.

And I remember clearly, the fish specials leaving Mallaig

day and night, seven days a week, Sunday included.

MILES: It had been a long time

before they were able to run fish trains on the Sabbath.

Old traditions die hard round here.

And Ronnie McLellan still combines his job as an engine driver

with something much more ancient, the art of crofting.

I inherited the croft in 1954.

You've been driving on the trains all that time.

Oh, yes. I've been on the trains since 1941.

- Long before I inherited the croft. - Oh, I see.

How do you combine the two, isn't it almost impossible?

Well, I think when you're brought up on a croft

you find that the croft itself won't keep you.

It's necessary also to have a good job.

But I think when you're born on a croft there's some attachment

which makes you feel as if you've always got to stick by it.

How serious is the threat to close it down now?

Oh, I don't think there's any threat at the moment.

There's been rumours of the railway closing

for quite a number of years now.

In fact, about two years ago

they were considering closing down the depot at Mallaig,

but it was proved then to the powers that be

that it wasn't a very wise thing to do,

so we've still got the depot at Mallaig

and it looks as if the railway is beginning to pick up.

We've got a steam train and we've got a few specials.

There's something about the steam

that the diesel will never compete with.

There's a bit of everything about the steam,

a bit of romance, there's a bit of science.

What is there about the diesel?

Oh, the diesel is just a big box.

A big box and you open the power handle and what more can you do?

Hope and pray that it goes.

That's another one ready for market.

So, when you come home from driving on the railway

you look forward to getting back to...

Oh, yes, always have done.

Yes, yes, it's a complete contrast from railway working,

although I've always been happy on the railway.

Happy in my job.

It's also a great thing just to forget all about it for a while.

And go out after the sheep, go to the hills.

It's a different way of life completely.

During its 85 years

the West Highland line to Mallaig has won and lost many battles.

I think the saddest loss of all was when British Rail decided

it could no longer compete with the roads for the fish trade.

SHEEP BLEAT

It left behind nothing but folk memories of the days

when driver and fireman used the fire box

to cook herrings on their shovels.

Or when the rails were so wet from the drips from the fish specials

that engines could hardly get up the hill out of Mallaig.

The fish trains finished well before the fish did

and in the 1970s Mallaig was still catching herring

as if there was no tomorrow.

Sophisticated echo sounders located the shoals

and giant nets swept the seas clean.

Then, one year all the herring had gone

and there was indeed no tomorrow.

The days when the smoke from 13 kipper factories

hid Mallaig from the sunlight suddenly seemed very far off.

The steam special stops in Mallaig for an hour

and during this hour the station souvenir shop closes for lunch.

I never found out why,

unless it was to give the passengers

the incentive to wander down to the quay

and see the crayfish being landed.

"Come to Mallaig and see what the Spanish get for lunch."

Oh, grand journey, lovely journey. It's lovely.

It's a pleasure to come up the line when it's nice and dry, you know.

But I was quite pleased with the run today.

It's a good engine too.

It's in good fettle right enough, comes up the hills there no bother.

Now, there is an unspoken fear in Mallaig

that the crayfish may one day go the same way as the herring did.

Of course, here they don't eat crayfish, they eat fish and chips.

And if I were to tell you that these chips have probably come

1,000 miles from the south of Spain, would you believe me?

Spanish first crop potatoes.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

Today the last relic in Mallaig of the great herring days

is George Lawrie's kipper factory.

Even then the herrings he so carefully splits and smokes

have to be brought from further down the coast.

But the ceremony of stacking up the smokehouse,

laying the fires and then letting the smoke do its work at leisure

is uncannily like the ritual of firing a railway engine

and getting up steam.

Long may they both continue.