Exmouth to Newton Abbot Great British Railway Journeys


Exmouth to Newton Abbot

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In 1840, one man transformed travel in the British Isles.

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His name was George Bradshaw

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and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

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Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,

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what to see and where to stay.

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Now 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys across the length

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and breadth of these isles to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

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I'm now completing my journey from London to Newton Abbot

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and I've arrived alongside the coastal beauty of what Bradshaw's

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would call South Devonshire.

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This was the scene of some of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's

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greatest railway engineering successes and worst failures.

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And both his triumphs and his disasters proved his genius.

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Today I'll take to the sea with the heroes of the RNLI.

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Couple of big waves coming now...

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Here we go! Woo!

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At the moment it feels a little bit like, I imagine, a jockey

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in the Grand National, we're going up and down and over the fences.

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'I'll visit a stormy coastal railway...'

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When the waves hit this section, the plumes of water go right over

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the top of the footbridge at the station.

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'..and have a close, personal encounter with a boyhood hero.'

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This is exciting, is this genuinely a section of Brunel's pipe?

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It is indeed, yes.

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Using my Bradshaw's Guide, I'm following the tracks

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of Isambard Kingdom Brunel,

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master engineer of the Great Western Railway.

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I started at Paddington station, a monumental success,

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and I'll finish in Newton Abbot in Devon, the scene of one of his

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biggest disappointments.

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The last leg of my journey begins in Exmouth, detours to Sidmouth,

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then crosses the Exe estuary to Starcross, on to Dawlish

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and finally, Newton Abbot.

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My Bradshaw's says, "We have all have the romantic allurements

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"of the watering places of the West, where we may find a fund of illimitable

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"enjoyment in the rich bouquet that nature has spread before us

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"on the freshening shores of Devon."

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The Victorians could be pompous and verbose

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but their appreciation of the beauties of Devon was sincere.

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I'm on a line known locally as The Avocet, where a locomotive

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first steamed the ten miles from Exeter to my first destination,

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Exmouth, in 1861.

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Once a small fishing village, Exmouth grew into an important port,

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from which Sir Walter Raleigh launched many of his voyages.

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The town became a very popular tourist destination

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during the Georgian period and its two-mile long

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promenade shows that it has remained so ever since.

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# Oh, I do love to be beside the seaside... #

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Already intoxicated by sea air!

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Bradshaw's tells me that Exmouth has, "in its immediate

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"neighbourhood a valley, sheltered on all sides from the winds,

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"and capable of affording a genial retreat. Exmouth is

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"a decidedly healthy place,"

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but the sea also brings its dangers

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and Exmouth has had a lifeboat station for more than 200 years.

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Over the course of two centuries, lifeboats have saved

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the lives of over 139,000 people off the coasts of Britain.

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They first patrolled the waters around South Shields in 1790.

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Exmouth has had one since 1803 and half a century later,

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the station joined The Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

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Tim Mock is a full time mechanic and coxswain.

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Tim, you've had a lifeboat at Exmouth

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going all the way back to 1803.

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Yes, that's correct, yes. A privately run life boat in those days.

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And those lifeboats in those days - how would they have been powered?

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Well, that was pulling and sailing boats, that's rowing and sails only.

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What do you think of that?

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Very hard work, I had a go at it in one of the old boats

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and just found it impossible.

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How they ever managed to

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row for hours and hours on end, I really admire them for that.

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Standing on the former slipway here is a reminder that, actually,

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you could be called out at any time today.

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That's a possibility, yes,

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south-easterly winds here means the sea is quite rough - although

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it's a nice sunny day, small boats can get in trouble at any time.

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Do the people of Exmouth feel a strong connection with their lifeboat?

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-Oh, definitely, yes.

-Are they supportive?

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Very much so, the lifeboat's always been a big part of the community

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and for our side of things we need the community to operate

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the service and, of course, going back to Victorian times, the bigger

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boats were launched by hand only, so you'd need 40 or 50 men and

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women to pull the boat down here out into the water.

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I see your present station is 1903, so you're just post-Victorian.

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A connection between lifeboats and railways?

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Most definitely, boats would have been

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delivered by the railways, spare parts...

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and in latter years, tractors

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and heavier bits of equipment would have all come by rail.

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Sir William Hillary founded the National Institution

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for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, in 1824.

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Today almost 5,000 volunteers crew lifeboats,

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and I've been invited aboard the Exmouth all-weather lifeboat

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for a scheduled training exercise.

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Luckily, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution

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shares my taste in bright-coloured clothes.

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Well, I have once before been out with the RNLI,

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but that was in a small inflatable, this is a completely different

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kettle of fish, this is a very substantial boat.

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At the helm today is former Royal Marine, deputy coxswain Scott Ranft.

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Well, it's quite surprising that on a warm

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and sunny day there's quite a swell out here.

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We've got a force five wind heading from an easterly direction

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so it does pick up, especially in this channel as we come out

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through, it specifically picks up because it's quite shallow.

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There's a couple of big waves coming now...

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There we go...whoa...

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At the moment it feels a little bit like, I imagine, a jockey

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in the Grand National, we're going up and down and over the fences.

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That's right.

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Roger Jackson, a crew member for the last 14 years, has taken the helm.

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I've heard he was recently honoured for leading a particularly

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hazardous rescue, manoeuvring the station's in-shore lifeboat

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to retrieve four young men from very rough seas.

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We had to get them one by one, climb and climb and climb,

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dumping surf over the top, go back round and go in again,

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and go in again four times.

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What state were they in?

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Absolutely hypothermic, really cold, really, really shocked,

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and extremely pleased to see us. They were very lucky lads.

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And you were given the Bronze Medal for Gallantry?

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That's right, yes. Last week I actually went to London

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and the Duke of Gloucester awarded it to me.

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It was a very proud moment for myself, of course,

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but also for Exmouth lifeboat station, as well.

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I'd love to see it.

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That is the actual medal there.

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As you can see, that's Sir William Hillary, the founder of the RNLI.

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How wonderful.

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Would you like to have a drive?

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I'd love to have a drive, thank you very much indeed.

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If you want to come through...

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OK. I've quite often been asked to take control of a steam engine.

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I think I feel more control of this than I do when it's a locomotive.

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How's that, Michael?

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Well, it's just a great honour to be steering this vessel

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standing next to a hero.

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I don't know about that.

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I'm travelling by road to my next destination.

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Sidmouth didn't have a railway when my guide was written and the

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line that opened in the 1870s fell to the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

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I'm intrigued to know why railway-less Sidmouth,

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which my Bradshaw's describes as, "Nestled at the bottom

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"of a valley between lofty hills, 500 feet high,"

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was deemed important enough for an entry covering almost a whole page.

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This range of cliffs, according to my guidebook has been

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"the theatre of convulsions or landslips.

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"One commencing on Christmas Day, 1839, whereby 45 acres of arable

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"land were lost."

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The beach is now fenced to the public,

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so landslips are not a thing of the past, and this

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so-called Jurassic Coast is of interest to geologists today.

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Sidmouth's cliffs are particularly

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important because they occasionally yield fossils of rare

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pre-historic amphibians and reptiles.

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Earth Science manager, Richard Edmonds, is

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responsible for protecting this world heritage site.

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-Richard, hello.

-Hello, Michael, nice to meet you.

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Apparently, for centuries, these cliffs have been tumbling down?

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Well, that's right ,they're actually 230 million years old,

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but the natural recession rate is about five metres a century.

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But my Bradshaw's tells me that on one occasion there was a landslip

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where 45 acres of farming land were lost,

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so that has been going on a long time.

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Yes, but landslides are a different process.

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Landslides tend to be an enormous great, sort of, rending of the earth.

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What we're seeing here is more cliff fall caused by the sea

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undercutting the base of the cliffs.

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In the 19th century did they take steps to slow down the erosion?

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Well, to start with, Sidmouth was

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built on the back of a vast shingle spit,

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so it was a very healthy beach,

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the waves could hit the beach and be soaked up, the energy,

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but in the 1830s, after big storms, they started to construct

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sea defences and those have just become bigger and bigger and bigger.

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In the 1920s, a great gale breached the sea wall

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and wrought havoc along much of Sidmouth's esplanade,

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so the town built a new, higher wall at the then hefty cost of £100,000.

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But in Bradshaw's day,

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railway builders weren't put off by high seas and eroding cliffs.

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I believe the Victorians tried to put a railway in here?

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Yes, that's right, the plan was to build a harbour on the western

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side of Sidmouth at Ship Rocks and use Salcombe stone which

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comes from a village just a couple of miles this way.

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The plan was apparently to quarry the stone and then transport

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it in a railway in a tunnel running parallel to the back of the cliff.

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And what happened to that plan?

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The railway engine they bought didn't fit in the tunnel

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and the company went bust.

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-That can't be true, can it?

-It is.

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So, they at least got as far as making the tunnel?

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That's right, you can still see the tunnel sticking out of the cliff,

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but what's happened since then is the erosion has come through

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and actually eaten away and destroyed the tunnel.

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The entrance was literally just here at Pennington Point and in

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the last 20 years the cliffs have receded and it's been lost.

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So the tunnel added to the difficulties of the cliff?

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Well, it's done its damage, yes, the cliff has got to the point

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where it reached the tunnel,

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and suddenly there's this increase in erosion.

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That's likely to be one of the reasons why we've had this very

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marked increase in erosion over the last years.

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Hopefully now the tunnel's gone

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and the sea is coming back into the solid geology,

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we should see it slow down.

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Richard, thank you very much, I must slip away. Bye-bye.

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Back to Exmouth now to take not a train, but a short boat ride,

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that will deliver me to the exact spot I'm aiming for.

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PA ANNOUNCEMENT: "...on the ferry to Starcross.

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I'm on the ferry crossing the mouth of the River Exe to Starcross,

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a small place with a big chunk of railway history.

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And I think I can see a relic of it coming into view now.

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The final three destinations of my journey all played a pivotal

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role in Isambard Kingdom Brunel's greatest railway failure -

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his atmospheric railway,

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where trains were not hauled by steam locomotive but forced

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forward by atmospheric pressure, running through a pipe on the track.

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Starcross is first.

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This is a pumping station that was used on Brunel's atmospheric

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railway, there's a pub dedicated to the history of that line

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and after a long day I've earned myself a drink there.

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-Good evening.

-Good evening.

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-Could I have a half a lager, please?

-You sure can.

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I see you're called The Atmospheric Railway,

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are you quite an admirer of Brunel, are you?

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I sure am, I think he's one of the greatest engineers we've ever had.

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Why are you such an admirer?

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Well, he just wasn't one particular item, was it, I mean

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he built bridges, tunnels, boats, he was just an all-round great engineer.

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Well, then, the toast is - Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

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Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

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-Cheers.

-Cheers.

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After a day's travelling, it's a night cap and early to bed for me.

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As a boy, I marvelled at the life of Brunel.

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Even though the atmospheric railway was ultimately a failure,

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I'm keen to find out more about it.

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At my next destination, Dawlish, the line had a station.

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I'm on the Exeter to Paignton branch line this morning.

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Before trains reached the south Devon coast, Brunel's

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challenge was to lay track over very hilly and sharply curving terrain.

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The trains are now powered by diesel,

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but the route is almost the same as in Bradshaw's day.

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The result is one of the most thrilling

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stretches of track in England.

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My Bradshaw's is understandably excited about this

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part of the journey.

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"The magnificent scenery which opens on each side as we proceed.

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"There is scarcely a mile traversed which does not unfold some

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"peculiar picturesque charm, or new feature of its own to make

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"the eye dazzled and drunk with beauty,"

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and for me there's the additional interest that we're travelling

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on tracks that were once part of Brunel's doomed atmospheric railway.

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In 1044, King Edward the Confessor,

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granted the parish of Dawlish to

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his chancellor and chaplain, Leofric.

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Salt-making, fishing and agriculture were the town's mainstay,

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until the 18th century penchant for taking the sea air

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and bathing, attracted the aristocratic set.

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But when the South Devon Railway arrived in the 1840s, the town

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was opened to everyone.

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Here at Dawlish, the station is built between the beach and the

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town, making this one of the most dramatic stretches of railway in

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England, and that's not just because of the views from the trains.

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In 1844, Brunel started building a sea wall to protect the line

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standing just a few yards from the foaming brine,

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but the elements were unkind to his coastal railway.

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Heavy rain would cause rock falls, breaching its defences,

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and even now the salty sea spray that billows up

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and over on rough days can affect the operation of the railway.

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John Wilkinson has lived here all his life.

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John...

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-hello.

-Morning, Michael.

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There's a bit of spray coming over the wall this morning, but I've

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been on trains and seen it far worse than this, how bad does it get?

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It gets very bad, on a bad day you wouldn't possibly be able to

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walk along this wall, when the waves hit this section the plumes of water

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go high in the air and actually get blown over onto Marine Parade,

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and just to give you some idea of the height, the actual plumes

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of water go right over the top of the footbridge at the station.

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And what effect does that have on the functioning of the railway?

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It does have effect on some of the train services,

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because when the plumes of water go high in the air it actually

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lands on the top of the trains and gets into the exhaust

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and into the electronic systems on the top.

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And historically it's interrupted services from time to time.

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It has... indeed, but when you consider the length of time

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it's been here I think the interruptions are not too serious,

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and any form of transport is subject to adverse weather.

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It's one of the great rides in England, isn't it?

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I think so, yes. It's got to be in the top ten, if not...

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A green tea, please.

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So where would you rank this amongst English train journeys?

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Number one!

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It's a beautiful piece of coastline, isn't it?

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It's a gorgeous piece of coastline, yes.

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Certainly the most picturesque, most exciting railway line in the country.

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You've got one of the best views of a railway

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anywhere in Britain, I should think.

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Do you like watching trains go by?

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We do, yeah.

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-Hello.

-Hello.

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Have you been here before?

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Yes, I used to come down here when I was a baby.

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Did you come on the train?

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No, not on the train...

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Ha-ha, that's a pity.

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We used to wave at the trains!

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So, you've brought your kids here now?

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My kids are here now.

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Are they waving at the trains?

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Yes, they love seeing the trains go past.

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Do you know who built this railway line?

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I don't know who built this railway line, actually, no.

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Isambard...

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Kingdom Brunel...

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and my son is named Noah Isambard after Brunel.

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Wow, you are admirers of Brunel.

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Yes, I'm an engineer, I think his work is fantastic.

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-Such a pleasure to talk to you, thank you very much.

-Thank you.

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Bye-bye, enjoy your day.

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With its track skirting the shore and with the sea pounding its

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platforms and its footbridge,

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there's no doubt that Dawlish is Brunellish.

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The last nine miles of my current journey is an exciting

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quarter-of-an-hour ride along the coastal line that Brunel

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built for his hapless atmospheric railway, because even though

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the technology failed, the route has remained in use for over 150 years.

0:19:550:20:01

In the past, my Bradshaw's guide has directed me to places described as

0:20:030:20:07

the Switzerland or the Athens or the Paris of the British Isles.

0:20:070:20:13

Now I'm headed for Newton Abbot,

0:20:130:20:15

dubbed The Swindon of the South West.

0:20:150:20:18

In Bradshaw's day, the station was called Newton Junction.

0:20:250:20:29

What became the South-West's Victorian rail hub was,

0:20:290:20:33

in the 17th century, the small market town of Newton Abbots,

0:20:330:20:37

an unlikely spot to shape the history of Britain.

0:20:370:20:40

Felicity Cole is the town museum's curator.

0:20:400:20:43

I think we've come across something else mentioned in my Bradshaw's,

0:20:430:20:46

regarding the declaration that was made

0:20:460:20:48

when William of Orange landed in Britain in 1688.

0:20:480:20:52

Tell me about that.

0:20:520:20:53

Well, William of Orange made his declaration, or his intent to

0:20:530:20:58

become king of England in 1688,

0:20:580:21:02

so a very politically-charged moment.

0:21:020:21:05

There were 30,000 troops that

0:21:050:21:07

came through the town that day,

0:21:070:21:09

and an extraordinary scene of things like Finlanders dressed

0:21:090:21:14

in bearskins, Spanish mercenaries with damseamed armour, but hundreds

0:21:140:21:18

of them processing through the town, so presumably anybody who had

0:21:180:21:22

said, "Well, we don't want that," would have got fairly well squashed

0:21:220:21:25

by the army.

0:21:250:21:27

Fundamentally, this was a Protestant rebellion

0:21:270:21:29

against a Catholic King which is why it says here, William III,

0:21:290:21:33

Prince of Orange, the glorious defender of the Protestant religion.

0:21:330:21:36

Indeed.

0:21:360:21:37

I've really come in pursuit of the town's railway history,

0:21:370:21:40

may we have a look at that, please?

0:21:400:21:42

Absolutely.

0:21:420:21:43

In 1892, The Great Western Railway built a new engine shed, workshops,

0:21:450:21:50

locomotive bays and a factory fashioned on their Swindon works.

0:21:500:21:55

The expansion in Newton Abbot meant that workers needed to be

0:21:550:21:58

housed, and whole streets were built for the purpose.

0:21:580:22:02

Here we are in a street that is really full of railway houses,

0:22:020:22:07

and where the railwaymen would have lived, and here is

0:22:070:22:09

David Grills who is one of those railwaymen that lived in the area.

0:22:090:22:12

-Hello, David.

-Pleased to meet you.

0:22:120:22:14

Were these all occupied by railwaymen in your day?

0:22:140:22:17

More or less, yes.

0:22:170:22:18

There were at one time 49 railwaymen in this one street,

0:22:180:22:22

and that ranged from wheel tappers to guards, goods guards,

0:22:220:22:28

passenger guards, enginemen, boilermen

0:22:280:22:32

and people who worked in the factory, so there was quite an extensive

0:22:320:22:35

mix right the way throughout all these terraces.

0:22:350:22:39

Did Newton Abbot deserve the title of the Swindon of the South West?

0:22:390:22:42

It indeed did, it was little Swindon, without a doubt.

0:22:420:22:47

At times, I can remember when I started as a young lad,

0:22:470:22:52

there were at least somewhere in the region of a thousand plus men

0:22:520:22:56

employed at Newton Abbot. We boasted at one time nine

0:22:560:23:00

working platforms, and the main platform was at least

0:23:000:23:04

a quarter of a mile long, and during the busy season we would entertain

0:23:040:23:10

something in the region of 350 trains in one weekend.

0:23:100:23:14

What was your job with the railways?

0:23:140:23:16

I was a passenger coach shunter, rather a dirty job, wet,

0:23:160:23:19

miserable and if you notice on most coaching stock, all the drain pipes

0:23:190:23:24

run down onto the back of the poor shunter who

0:23:240:23:26

is in the middle, coupling coaches up, so I used to get very wet,

0:23:260:23:30

but very dirty, but the money was good

0:23:300:23:33

They sound like good old days.

0:23:330:23:35

They were indeed good old days. I confess to going to

0:23:350:23:37

work as a small lad where I wore a peaked hat,

0:23:370:23:42

I polished the peak and I also polished the buttons

0:23:420:23:45

on the front of my jacket, I was so proud to be a railman.

0:23:450:23:50

GWR - God's Wonderful Railway.

0:23:500:23:53

-I'm very proud to have met you, David...

-And you, too.

0:23:530:23:57

Thank you, sir, very much indeed.

0:23:570:23:58

All the best, bye-bye.

0:23:580:24:01

It was Brunel's atmospheric railway that first ran to Newton Abbot.

0:24:010:24:06

Patented in 1839 by Samuel Clegg and the Samuda Brothers,

0:24:060:24:11

the system that ran on atmospheric pressure was

0:24:110:24:13

first employed on a Dublin line in 1844, where Brunel investigated it

0:24:130:24:19

and became convinced it was viable, and even preferable to steam power.

0:24:190:24:23

I'm hoping to find out more at Felicity's museum.

0:24:250:24:28

So, Felicity, can you explain to me how the atmospheric railway worked?

0:24:300:24:34

Well, the first question I could ask you is -

0:24:340:24:37

what do you notice about looking at this model?

0:24:370:24:40

No locomotive, and obviously a large

0:24:400:24:42

pipe running down the centre of the railway track.

0:24:420:24:45

And we've also got a pumping house or engine house here,

0:24:450:24:48

so what the pumping station is actually doing is evacuating

0:24:480:24:51

the air in front of the carriage in the pipe,

0:24:510:24:55

and then pressure is building up in the pipe behind the carriage

0:24:550:24:58

which pushes the whole thing along.

0:24:580:25:01

So you have a train that doesn't produce any smoke or any steam,

0:25:010:25:05

not very much noise, I imagine. It's extraordinary...

0:25:050:25:09

In fact, the passengers that travelled on it loved it,

0:25:090:25:11

and used to comment that it was swift, silent and smokeless,

0:25:110:25:16

and so despite all the things that did go wrong with it...

0:25:160:25:20

erm, people were very sad when it went.

0:25:200:25:23

The atmospheric railway caused great controversy.

0:25:240:25:28

Brunel's rival, Robert Stevenson,

0:25:280:25:31

claimed the atmospheric system would be expensive and less

0:25:310:25:34

reliable, compared to the steam locomotive he'd helped to invent.

0:25:340:25:39

Brunel refused to heed Stevenson's prophetic warning.

0:25:390:25:43

This is exciting. Is this genuinely a section of Brunel's pipe?

0:25:450:25:48

It is indeed, yes.

0:25:480:25:50

The piston would be travelling along inside this pipe,

0:25:500:25:53

which had been evacuated of air by the pumping house and as a

0:25:530:25:58

leather flap attached here was raised,

0:25:580:26:02

the air would come in behind the piston,

0:26:020:26:06

and creating the atmospheric pressure

0:26:060:26:08

to push the carriage forward, but then the problem would be the

0:26:080:26:11

flap had to return to its place and make a seal,

0:26:110:26:15

ready for the next train.

0:26:150:26:18

Although the technology had advantages,

0:26:180:26:21

it faced two major problems.

0:26:210:26:23

Its air pipes corroded in the salty sea air

0:26:230:26:26

and animal fat had to be manually applied to stop the leather seals from cracking.

0:26:260:26:31

Local legend has it that rats ate through the seals

0:26:310:26:35

and caused the line's closure, but it was the cost of upkeep which,

0:26:350:26:39

after eight months, finally did for it.

0:26:390:26:42

Undaunted, Brunel went on to engineer the ship, SS Great Eastern,

0:26:430:26:48

Paddington Station and the

0:26:480:26:50

magnificent Royal Albert Bridge in Cornwall

0:26:500:26:52

before he died at the age of just 53.

0:26:520:26:55

Well, his qualities certainly made him my boyhood hero,

0:26:570:27:01

and he's the hero of many people still living today who remember

0:27:010:27:04

the fantastic achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

0:27:040:27:07

Indeed.

0:27:070:27:09

My railway journey from London Paddington to Newton Abbot

0:27:140:27:18

has taken me past some of southern England's most beautiful buildings

0:27:180:27:22

and finest views.

0:27:220:27:23

My guidebook has opened my eyes to key events

0:27:230:27:27

and sights in our island history.

0:27:270:27:29

Where George Bradshaw has guided my tracks,

0:27:290:27:32

Isambard Kingdom Brunel built the tracks.

0:27:320:27:35

Standing here above his Great Western Railway,

0:27:350:27:38

I seriously doubt whether a finer civil engineer ever existed.

0:27:380:27:43

On my next journey, my Bradshaw's will lead me

0:27:530:27:56

across the Irish Sea, tracing 19th century tracks from Kerry

0:27:560:27:59

to Galway, landscapes shot to fame by Queen Victoria.

0:27:590:28:05

-If it was good enough for the Royal Family, it was good enough for everyone?

-Correct.

0:28:050:28:08

'I'll visit the Irish National Stud,

0:28:080:28:11

and find myself bucked....'

0:28:110:28:12

Oh, the horse is going very fast now.

0:28:120:28:14

Absolutely exhausting!

0:28:140:28:17

'..and hear Irish history, preserved in song.'

0:28:170:28:20

# Oh, there is a land...

0:28:200:28:22

# far away. #

0:28:220:28:26

Well done, Michael.

0:28:260:28:28

Ooooooh!

0:28:280:28:30

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