Dudley to Bridgnorth Great British Railway Journeys


Dudley to Bridgnorth

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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,

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I'm making a series of journeys across the length and breadth of these Isles

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to see what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.

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I'm now more than half way through my journey

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from High Wycombe to Aberystwyth

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and today, I go into the Black Country.

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Whether in the 19th century they called it black

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because of the coal or because of the smog is debateable,

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but there's no doubt that it was a powerhouse of Britain.

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'On this leg, I learn how Victorian blacksmithing

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'was not for the faint-hearted.'

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It's very hard, physical work,

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there's no doubt about that.

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'I'll ride one of Britain's most modern trains.'

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And there we go, a surge of power.

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'And traverse the remarkable Victoria Bridge.'

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In its day, it was the longest clear span in the world

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and it is, of course, majestic.

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TRAIN WHISTLES

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So far, my journey has brought me

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from the rural home counties

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to Shakespeare Country

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and on to Britain's second city.

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I'm now heading through the Black Country

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before moving west into Wales,

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toward my last stop at Aberystwyth.

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This leg begins in Dudley,

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moves south west to Stourbridge,

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then onto Kidderminster, in Worcestershire,

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and finishes at Bridgnorth, in Shropshire.

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My guidebook is dramatic about my first destination - Dudley.

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"Almost every town, village, house, man, woman, child,

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"every occupation and station, are more or less dependent

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"and are at the mercy of lumps of coal and iron.

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"And the human race will mainly owe their moral regeneration

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"to these two materials."

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I think that a Quaker like George Bradshaw was uncertain

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whether the factories and mills of the Industrial Revolution

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were satanic or a gift from God.

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After the English Civil War, Dudley Castle was purposely damaged

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to prevent the Royalists from using it as a fortification.

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Already known for its coalmines,

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by the 16th century,

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the market town was a renowned manufacturer of ironmongery.

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This is Dudley port, even though the nearest sea is 100 miles away.

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But the clue is in the canal, this place once teemed with vessels.

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And my Bradshaw's says, "The night view from Dudley Castle",

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on the hill there, "of the coal and iron districts,

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"reminds the spectator of the smithy of Vulcan as described by Homer.

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"The lurid flames that issue from the summits of the huge chimneys

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"light up the horizon for miles around,

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"and impart to every object a gloomy aspect."

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Well, Dudley looks very different today,

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but I'm here to discover that Victorian past.

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When the canals reached Dudley,

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large iron works sprang up at such a rapid rate

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that they were able to produce the iron chains, anvils and vices

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that would tool Britain's Industrial Revolution.

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I'm at the Black Country Living Museum

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to meet Director Of Collections, David Eveleigh.

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When does the Black Country become industrialised?

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Well, it really stretches back to the Middle Ages.

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We know that coal had been mined

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in parts of the Black Country since the 14th century

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and, by the 16th century,

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the area around Dudley was renowned for the manufacture of nails.

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And we know that Henry VIII's household ordered Dudley nails

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for work on Hampton Court in the 1540s.

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What is the extent of the Black Country?

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Well, that's a very difficult question to answer,

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simply and succinctly because no two people will agree.

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The simplest way to explain it today

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is that it consists of the current four unitary authorities

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of Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Sandwell,

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-which contains West Bromwich.

-It'd have been very different in Victorian times.

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What would the atmosphere have been like?

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I think it's unlikely that we'd have seen such a clear blue sky, for a start.

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The Black Country was proverbially grimy and smoky and black

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and whether it was the coal or the smoke,

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it acquired its name though its griminess and smokiness.

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Everyone commented on this.

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What was the impact of that grime and smoke on people's health?

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Living conditions were very tough.

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There was a lack of fresh water,

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there were very poor drains,

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so the disposal of sewage was a problem

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and a consequence of this, of course, is that it provided

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a ripe environment for the spread of water-borne diseases,

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such as cholera and typhoid.

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But, do you know, none of this, the smoke, the grime,

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the fame of the Black Country for its manufactured goods,

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the notoriety and, of course, the railways,

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none of this would have been possible

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without one absolutely key and vital invention

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-and, you know, I would like to show you that now.

-I'm all eyes.

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What is it you're going to show me?

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Well, it's actually this.

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This is a replica, the only full-size working replica anywhere

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-of the world's first steam engine.

-Located in this tall building?

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Yes, it's a fairly large steam engine

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so, effectively, you're looking at the steam engine here,

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bricks and mortar and the inside engine working this pump here.

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And this dates to what?

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This dates to 1712, it was built here at Dudley.

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-Fully a century before it was applied to the railway?

-Indeed.

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Well, it really is vast, it fills the entire room virtually

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and this really is the origin of a technology that changed the world.

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Absolutely. And, really, it is difficult

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to overestimate the significance,

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the vital impact of this invention on the Industrial Revolution

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and, of course, particularly, on the development of the Black Country.

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Thomas Newcomen's steam engine

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was not the almost universally applicable apparatus

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that James Watt developed 50 years later.

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Newcomen's engine powered a simple lift pump

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that removed excess water from deep coal mines,

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but it was whilst fixing a model of Newcomen's engine

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that James Watt had his eureka moment.

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Well, in all my travels

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through the Industrial Revolution and by railway,

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-I feel today that I've come to the cradle of it all.

-Absolutely.

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Known as the workshop of the world,

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the Black Country didn't just have deep coal mines.

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David's arranged for me to meet the museum's resident blacksmith,

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'who makes chains just as they were in Bradshaw's day.'

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What sort of temperatures are you working at in there?

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Um... The middle of the fire

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gets to around about 2,000 degrees centigrade,

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the heat of the metal, somewhere up to about 1,300, so it's quite warm!

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And Dudley's made some quite famous chain in its day, hasn't it?

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Yes, we made the Titanic's anchor chain.

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So if you'd like to have a go at flattening the ends.

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Here we go,

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just give it a good bash!

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It's very hard, physical work,

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there's no doubt of that.

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It wasn't just men making chain either,

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women making chain, children even learning how to make chain.

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-Right. If I hold that...

-Yes.

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-..and you give that a whack with a hammer...

-Yes.

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Well, turn it over,

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have another go on that side.

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Thank you.

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How's that doing?

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It's not too bad at all.

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And that's it, one finished link.

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After all that hard work, I need a bite to eat

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and I want to find out what life was like

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for the people who lived and worked in Dudley

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when it was still an industrial powerhouse.

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Hello there, are you from these parts?

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Yes, I am a local girl...

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Do you remember the chimneys and the smoke?

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Oh, yes, I do, I do.

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My dad was a moulder and he worked at the Coneygre Foundry,

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which is a local foundry

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and I remember, at school, the teacher said,

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"Is anyone's father a coal miner?"

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So I put my hand up and she said,

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"How do you know, which mine does he work in?"

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I says, "I don't really know."

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And she says, "Well, how do you know he's a coal miner?"

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I says, "Well, he comes home black every night!"

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And it was my job to wipe his back to get all the black sand off,

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so of course, to me, at the age of nine or ten, he was a coal miner

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but he wasn't, I found out later he worked in the foundry.

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-Are you proud of the Black Country?

-I am proud of the Black Country

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and I'm proud, I'm proud of my parents,

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cos they came from a working background.

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-Have an old-fashioned chip.

-Oh, thank you, you're so kind (!).

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SHE LAUGHS

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I'm leaving Dudley for another Black Country town,

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and to get there, I'll have to change twice.

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Firstly, at Smethwick Galton Bridge,

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from where I'll make the bulk of my journey

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before taking a brief but remarkable service.

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I love records

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and I'm about to experience the shortest branch line in Britain.

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Perhaps misunderstanding the theory of relativity,

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they use very short trains

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as though that might make the journey seem longer.

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TANNOY: We are now approaching Stourbridge Junction.

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Once a notorious Victorian accident black spot,

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the steep hill between the stations at Stourbridge Junction

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and Stourbridge Town

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is now provided by a people mover,

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a hybrid powered railcar which uses flywheel energy storage

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to reduce consumption and emissions.

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'And I hear it's proving popular.'

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-Do you enjoy driving this, do you?

-Yes, I do.

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They tell me this has very good acceleration.

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It has reasonably fast acceleration.

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I wouldn't like to take it too fast

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cos I'm limited to 20 miles an hour on this line.

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At the moment, we're running up at about ten

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and it will pick up fairly quickly.

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And there we go, a surge of power,

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pretty good brakes as well, I believe.

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Yes, obviously, we have to,

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because of the steepness and the gradient of the line.

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What kind of gradient is this?

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It comes into a one in 67, we have a couple of curves

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and then a straight and then two more curves into the town station.

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Well, the train has lots of passengers today,

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they obviously appreciate the little service into Stourbridge Town.

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Yes. In our first full year,

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we carried over 550,000 passengers,

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so we actually doubled the passenger loading

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and each one of these vehicles in a week will

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actually do just on about 1,000 miles.

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Absolutely amazing.

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Well, the journey may be short, but it's certainly memorable.

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-Thank you very much indeed.

-My pleasure.

-Bye-bye.

-Thank you.

-Bye.

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So Stourbridge Town, my Bradshaw's tells me,

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"A handsome town, noted for its glass manufacture."

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Well, glass has been made since almost ancient history,

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but the Victorians had a voracious appetite for it.

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Boosted by an influx of Huguenot glassmakers

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taking refuge from religious persecution in France,

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the plentiful supplies of fireclay and sandstone

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have made Stourbridge synonymous with glass since the 17th century.

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I'm meeting historian and author Paul Collins at a working museum

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called The Red House Glass Cone, to find out more.

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This is one of the most extraordinary buildings

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I've ever seen, what are its dimensions?

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It's 100 feet high to the very top, right up there,

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and it's 60 feet in diameter at the base.

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It was completed in 1788

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and we're actually looking at two million bricks.

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Two million bricks!

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Two million bricks, come on inside

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-and you'll get a better idea of how it works.

-Thank you.

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So here you are.

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Oh, it's like a cathedral dome, isn't it? Magnificent.

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It is magnificent but it's a most magnificent chimney,

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cos that's effectively what it's doing.

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I never saw a more beautiful chimney.

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It's one of the best, isn't it?

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You have a series of 12 glasspots in here

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which have got molten glass inside them at about 1,400 centigrade.

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The glass blower would have one of these blow pipes,

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the end of which would be heated,

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it would then be dipped into the glass bowl,

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the glass would then come out and then he would blow it.

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It's quite a task, would you like to just try the weight of that?

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Oh, that is surprisingly heavy, isn't it?

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-You're holding it in the obvious way.

-Yes.

-This is where you hold it,

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so if you try holding it with both hands there,

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-then, with molten glass on the end...

-Yeah.

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Quite difficult, isn't it?

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Yeah. You need have very good arm muscles to do that.

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Extremely good arm muscles

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and then you're also creating something that's very delicate

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and very beautiful as well using that.

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Did the railways make much of a difference?

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In terms of the actual organisation of the industry, not a lot.

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What it did do was open up vastly larger markets for the glass.

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You could get glass products to Liverpool, to Southampton, to London.

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The 19th century was the "Golden Age of Stourbridge Glass".

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Local glassmakers created myriad shapes,

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colours and decorative techniques

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far outstripping any other country

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for technical brilliance and aesthetic beauty.

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And some of the pioneers of the luxurious and coveted Cameo Glass

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perfected their skills here too.

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The railway companies themselves also bought enormous numbers of glasses.

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They all had little monograms on them.

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When you had a glass of wine or glass of something

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in the dining car on the train,

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it had the railway company's logo on it or initials on it,

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that would have been made here as well.

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What of the industry now?

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The industry as it was represented

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by the products of this glass cone has effectively gone.

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It was priced out of the market by cheaper foreign imports.

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What has happened is that we've gone back

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to a more artisan type of glass industry,

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a studio glass industry, if you like,

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and there's probably a lot more imagination and diversity

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in the use of glass and experimentation with it as a material

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than there ever was at any point in its history.

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-Which way are the artisans?

-The artisans are through there.

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-Lovely to see you.

-Nice to meet you too.

-Thank you. Goodbye.

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-Sarah, hello!

-Hello.

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I see you make these beautiful glass beads in many colours,

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is that exactly what you're doing now?

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It is, yes. Every bead I make is different,

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because I don't have a plan of how it's going to turn out,

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I just keep adding and building.

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Shall we make one that's really different,

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-like by me giving you a hand?

-OK.

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-So what do I do?

-Right, if you take a seat here.

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So you'll need one of these.

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-Ooh...

-Twizzle that a bit so it doesn't fall off.

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-Yeah, I'm twizzling it.

-OK.

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-Twizzling.

-So when it's hot, you want to put it on like that

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and then, turning the mandrel away.

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I'm turning the mandrel away...

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Ooh, that's nice, that's very nice.

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-So now I'm building up a little ring of glass.

-Yeah.

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-That's really good.

-Look at that!

-That's brilliant.

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-You've got it.

-You didn't know I had it in me, did you?

-No.

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I'm really enjoying that.

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This is going to look like no other glass bead that was ever made.

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Let's have a look. Could you just hold...?

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I told you I would make a bead like no other.

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SHE CHUCKLES

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My Bradshaw's mentions just one hotel in Stourbridge - The Talbot.

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Luckily, it's still standing

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and it's where I'll be spending the night.

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Rejuvenated and ready for the day ahead,

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I'm making my way to my next destination - Kidderminster.

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From about 1735, the town became known

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for the manufacture of carpets,

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a diversification within the well-established local cloth industry.

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But I'm here for one reason, and one reason only.

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Kidderminster, says my Bradshaw's,

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"Stands on both banks of the River Stour,

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"which divides it into two unequal parts.

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"A regular and compact town consisting mainly of two good streets."

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My main interest is that it has a beautiful railway station

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which is gateway to one of Britain's most renowned

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standard gauge heritage steam powered railways.

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For 101 years, the Severn Valley Railway

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ran between Hartlebury and Shrewsbury.

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But in 1963, it closed.

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Seven years later, after an immense effort

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from a group of dedicated volunteers, it re-opened.

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'David Williams was one of them.'

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-David!

-Hello, Michael.

-Hello.

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-Welcome to the Severn Valley Railway, Michael.

-Thank you.

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Well, congratulations to you on the Severn Valley Railway.

0:17:290:17:32

How was it preserved and saved?

0:17:320:17:34

In the very first place,

0:17:340:17:36

we had to raise £2,500 as a 10% deposit on the track

0:17:360:17:40

and that took raffle sales, jumble stalls,

0:17:400:17:42

all sorts of things to raise the money.

0:17:420:17:45

This was 1965-66 and people started to join

0:17:450:17:48

from Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the Black Country

0:17:480:17:52

with a great enthusiasm for it.

0:17:520:17:54

We realised that unless we were going

0:17:540:17:57

to actually buy the land, the track,

0:17:570:17:59

the infrastructure, the locomotives and the coaches,

0:17:590:18:03

it would all disappear completely

0:18:030:18:05

and perhaps just be in static museums

0:18:050:18:07

and it seemed worthwhile to make a preserved railway

0:18:070:18:10

with steam trains still operating.

0:18:100:18:12

And you were a group of young men at the time, weren't you?

0:18:120:18:15

We were indeed and very enthusiastic.

0:18:150:18:18

This photograph I took in 1966.

0:18:180:18:21

You look like The Beatles generation here, don't you?

0:18:210:18:23

I think we really were.

0:18:230:18:24

It's a great, great achievement. How do you stand now?

0:18:240:18:27

How many miles of track, how many locomotives,

0:18:270:18:29

how many carriages?

0:18:290:18:31

We've got 16 miles of line

0:18:310:18:33

extending from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth,

0:18:330:18:36

we've got 28 steam locomotives,

0:18:360:18:40

68 passenger coaches

0:18:400:18:44

and even goods wagons.

0:18:440:18:46

A station like this makes my heart sing

0:18:460:18:48

and I have a feeling it's not the last time today

0:18:480:18:51

that my heart is going to sing.

0:18:510:18:52

David, thank you so much.

0:18:520:18:54

I know I am going to enjoy this very much.

0:18:540:18:55

-I'm sure you are, Michael.

-Thank you.

-Goodbye.

0:18:550:18:58

The first thing that strikes me about the Severn Valley Railway

0:19:020:19:04

is the beauty of its rolling stock.

0:19:040:19:07

Here are two sets, whole trains of wonderfully restored carriages.

0:19:070:19:13

This one on the left, incredibly, is made of teak,

0:19:130:19:16

it used to run on the LNER between Kings Cross and Edinburgh

0:19:160:19:21

and since I used to ride that route myself in the 1950s,

0:19:210:19:25

I may have travelled in these very carriages.

0:19:250:19:28

HE BLOWS HIS WHISTLE

0:19:290:19:30

There's nothing like a departure by steam,

0:19:350:19:38

the shuddering and the clanking and the hissing... It's real.

0:19:380:19:42

The Severn Valley Railway may appear quaint,

0:19:470:19:50

but it's come a long way from the type of fundraising

0:19:500:19:52

that it undertook in the 1960s,

0:19:520:19:55

recently raising £720,000 in just one month,

0:19:550:19:59

from a share offer that it hopes will eventually net

0:19:590:20:02

three million pounds.

0:20:020:20:03

Fist stop, Bewdley.

0:20:060:20:08

Having admired, and now ridden in the rolling stock,

0:20:080:20:11

I'm meeting Richard Gunning at the railway's restoration shed.

0:20:110:20:15

How long does it take you to restore a car?

0:20:150:20:18

Five to ten years depending on its condition.

0:20:180:20:20

That is extraordinary, it can take so long, what patience!

0:20:200:20:23

-This is a break pigeon van, Michael.

-Pigeon van?

-Yes.

-Why so?

0:20:250:20:30

Pigeon racing started as a short-distance hobby.

0:20:300:20:33

When the railways arrived, that opened up a new opportunity

0:20:330:20:38

to take the pigeons further and have longer races.

0:20:380:20:42

In 1886, King Leopold of Belgium

0:20:420:20:45

gifted a flock of racing pigeons to Queen Victoria,

0:20:450:20:49

and her son, Edward, Prince of Wales,

0:20:490:20:51

began flying them competitively.

0:20:510:20:53

Long-distance pigeon racing quickly became a mass participation sport

0:20:550:21:00

reliant on the railway network

0:21:000:21:02

to transport the homing birds to race points,

0:21:020:21:05

where they were released simultaneously from their baskets

0:21:050:21:09

by railway porters and guards.

0:21:090:21:11

The North Eastern Railway was, we think, the first in 1905.

0:21:150:21:19

But by 1930, the London, Midland and Scottish were running

0:21:200:21:24

17 pigeon van trains a day.

0:21:240:21:26

That's extraordinary.

0:21:260:21:27

-And carrying seven million pigeons a year.

-Oh, I can't believe it.

0:21:270:21:30

It is unbelievable, isn't it?

0:21:300:21:32

-Hello!

-Hello, Michael.

-Hard at work?

0:21:320:21:36

-Oh, very much so.

-What are you doing here?

0:21:360:21:38

Well, this is called a drop light,

0:21:380:21:41

it's familiar to most people of our generation.

0:21:410:21:45

HE CHUCKLES

0:21:450:21:46

It slides up and down in a door,

0:21:460:21:48

-it's a piece of glass, a frame and a leather strap.

-Yes.

0:21:480:21:52

We're about to drop that in there, would you like to do that for me?

0:21:520:21:55

Oh! That would be a great honour indeed.

0:21:550:21:58

-Oh, not as heavy as I thought.

-Very, very light.

0:22:000:22:04

Down it goes

0:22:070:22:09

and then, I can use the leather strap

0:22:090:22:11

just to put it in position.

0:22:110:22:13

Isn't that a beautiful piece of work, congratulations!

0:22:130:22:16

Thank you very much.

0:22:160:22:17

Bound now for Shropshire,

0:22:240:22:27

I'm excited at the piece of railway history that I'm about to encounter.

0:22:270:22:32

Sir John Fowler, joint engineer on the Forth Bridge

0:22:370:22:40

and the first part of the London Underground,

0:22:400:22:43

also engineered the Severn Valley Railway

0:22:430:22:46

and he left a dramatic structure as his legacy.

0:22:460:22:50

The highlight of this journey is the Victoria Bridge,

0:22:500:22:53

patriotically named after our Queen.

0:22:530:22:57

In its day, it was the longest clear span in the world

0:22:570:23:00

and it is, of course, majestic.

0:23:000:23:03

TRAIN WHISTLES

0:23:030:23:05

I shall ride this train to the end of the line at Bridgnorth,

0:23:180:23:21

which Bradshaw's tells me,

0:23:210:23:23

"Is a considerable town situated on both sides of the Severn.

0:23:230:23:26

"The two parts being distinguished by the names upper and lower

0:23:260:23:31

"and connected by a noble bridge of six arches.

0:23:310:23:35

"It has a considerable carrying trade on the river.

0:23:350:23:38

"In other respects, it is of a miscellaneous character."

0:23:380:23:43

I look forward to visiting both the upper and the lower

0:23:430:23:46

and maybe to discovering what is meant

0:23:460:23:48

by "a miscellaneous character".

0:23:480:23:50

From the six-arched bridge,

0:24:030:24:04

I see what Bradshaw meant by miscellaneous,

0:24:040:24:07

some houses are brick, some are half timbered,

0:24:070:24:10

some buildings are of stone, others are whitewashed,

0:24:100:24:13

one church has castellations,

0:24:130:24:16

another is like a temple.

0:24:160:24:18

Founded at the beginning of the 12th century,

0:24:190:24:22

when its now ruined castle was completed,

0:24:220:24:24

Bridgnorth is not only on a heritage line,

0:24:240:24:27

it's also got England's oldest and steepest inland funicular railway.

0:24:270:24:32

With a vertical rise of 111 feet,

0:24:320:24:35

the Cliff Railway links Bridgnorth's High and Low Towns

0:24:350:24:39

and is now powered by electricity instead of water ballast,

0:24:390:24:43

but functions as efficiently as it did in Bradshaw's day.

0:24:430:24:47

'Jason Tipping is the Company Secretary.'

0:24:480:24:51

I'm really looking forward to this.

0:24:510:24:53

Beautiful old cars, have they recently been restored?

0:24:580:25:00

Yes, they have, we had them repainted this year

0:25:000:25:03

in the traditional Trafalgar blue and cream

0:25:030:25:06

and we also had the brick work re-pointed

0:25:060:25:09

and the top station re-boarded as well,

0:25:090:25:11

wood from Belgium with hand cut nails.

0:25:110:25:14

Fantastic job, how old is the railway?

0:25:140:25:17

It's 120 years, we've just had our 120th anniversary this year.

0:25:170:25:21

The Cliff Railway was the brainchild of a Victorian town councillor

0:25:210:25:25

who, on a day in 1888, counted 3,000 people using the 200 steps

0:25:250:25:31

that linked the split-level town.

0:25:310:25:33

And after Sir George Newnes,

0:25:340:25:36

a proponent of funicular railways got involved,

0:25:360:25:38

the railway soon opened for business.

0:25:380:25:40

In 2011, the Tipping family, bought it, ensuring its survival.

0:25:430:25:47

And are you pleased you bought it?

0:25:490:25:50

We're pleased we bought it.

0:25:500:25:52

And I think the wider public of Bridgnorth were pleased

0:25:520:25:54

that we saved the railway.

0:25:540:25:56

It's just wonderful, wonderful to be part of this ongoing process

0:25:560:26:00

and we shall keep it in our family for many years to come.

0:26:000:26:03

Making sure that the cars are empty,

0:26:030:26:06

Jason has agreed for me to have a go at controlling the Cliff Railway.

0:26:060:26:10

-It's all controlled from the top, as you might imagine.

-Yes.

0:26:100:26:13

Is it complicated?

0:26:130:26:15

No, what I tell everybody is once you've mastered the brake,

0:26:150:26:18

everything else falls into place.

0:26:180:26:20

HISSING

0:26:200:26:21

-That's the brake making the hissing noise.

-Uh-huh.

0:26:210:26:24

-And that you have to judge quite carefully, don't you?

-Yes.

0:26:240:26:27

OK, one notch at a time.

0:26:290:26:30

That's it.

0:26:310:26:32

-Oh, it goes off at quite a rate, doesn't it?

-Uh-huh.

0:26:340:26:37

-I keep going up here?

-Yes.

0:26:370:26:39

Tell me, tell me, what do I do?!

0:26:390:26:40

OK, you brake.

0:26:400:26:42

Bring this handle back down to two and start using the brake

0:26:420:26:45

to get it down to 100.

0:26:450:26:46

-Oh, Lord, what's happened?

-You've stalled it.

0:26:520:26:54

SHE LAUGHS

0:26:540:26:55

-What do I do now?

-Would you like me to get you out of that,

0:26:550:26:57

-to bring the car...?

-Yes, please, rescue the situation.

0:26:570:27:01

Don't worry, you're not the first, you won't be the last.

0:27:010:27:03

And there we go.

0:27:050:27:07

-Ah, I've failed.

-Oh, you'll be fine.

0:27:070:27:09

Thousands of passengers have been carried safely,

0:27:090:27:12

but not when I was driving.

0:27:120:27:13

-No, but you can always come back and have another go.

-Thank you.

0:27:130:27:16

SHE CHUCKLES

0:27:160:27:17

During the Industrial Revolution,

0:27:240:27:26

smoke hung densely over the towns of the West Midlands.

0:27:260:27:30

The forges, furnaces and glassworks made Victorians wonder

0:27:300:27:35

whether mechanisation had unleashed the fires of hell.

0:27:350:27:39

Today, on the Severn Valley Railway,

0:27:390:27:41

I saw coal burning again in the locomotives

0:27:410:27:44

sending plumes of smoke into the air

0:27:440:27:47

and we look back on a golden age of travel with misty eyes.

0:27:470:27:51

On the next leg, I'll experience Victorian entertainment

0:27:540:27:57

in one of Wales's best-loved resorts.

0:27:570:28:01

Here are the waves hitting the shore

0:28:010:28:03

and here is the Bay Of Aberystwyth.

0:28:030:28:05

'Hear how the railways took Welsh textiles

0:28:050:28:08

'into even the most exclusive households.'

0:28:080:28:11

When Queen Victoria sat down,

0:28:110:28:13

there was a good piece of Newtown flannel between her and the throne.

0:28:130:28:16

HE LAUGHS

0:28:160:28:17

'And unleash the power of a 19th century engineering triumph.'

0:28:170:28:21

Whoa!

0:28:210:28:23

Listen to the sound of that water!

0:28:230:28:25

It's got 125 feet of head behind it!

0:28:250:28:28

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