Motherwell to Linlithgow Great British Railway Journeys

For Victorian Britons, George Bradshaw was a household name.

At a time when railways were new,

Bradshaw's guidebook inspired them to take to the tracks.

I am using a Bradshaw's Guide to understand how trains transformed

Britain, its landscape, its industry, society and leisure time.

As I crisscross the country, 150 years later, it helps me

to discover the Britain of today.

Steered by my Bradshaw's guide,

I am continuing my journey across Southern Scotland.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution,

the famed natural beauty of the River Clyde had to accommodate ship

building yards that would supply vessels to the world.

Down came the trees and up went the dockyard cranes

and factory chimney stacks.

My route this week has carried me across Scotland from West to East.

It began at the Firth of Clyde

and headed through the Scottish Lowlands to Glasgow.

I'll turn North to Stirling and Perth, skirting the Highlands.

I'll then moved east to Fife

and the famous university town of St Andrews from where I'll travel

to Scotland's capital where my journey ends.

On today's leg,

I begin in Motherwell in the heart of the Scottish Lowlands,

before heading south to the edge of the Clyde coalfields.

Then it is back to one of Scotland's most populated areas,

and my journey ends at Linlithgow, birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots.

I meet the kings of molten metal...

My goodness, that is an extraordinary sight,

absolutely vast, isn't it? What a scale this is built on.

..rediscover the Victorian love affair with Scotland...

Everybody came to the Falls of Clyde specifically to see Corra Linn,

the largest waterfall,

and the largest waterfall in Britain as well.

..and visit the home of a mighty brew.

It's still a family secret, I had it passed down to me by my father

and I have now passed it through to my daughter.

George Bradshaw believed that tourists should see factories,

the Dundyvan ironworks are well worth visiting.

I'm going to get off at Motherwell to understand how the vast

demands of the ship building industry were met

during the 19th century.

Motherwell at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

was a small farming community of about 700 people.

The town's fortunes were transformed by the arrival of the railway

and by 1901 its population had swelled to 30,000.

Central to the town's industrial boom was David Colville's iron

and steel works, founded in 1871.

I am meeting Colin Timmins, manager at Tata Steel,

heir to that legacy.

I really don't need to ask you

whether railways play a part in your business, they clearly do.

What do you use them for?

They are mainly used for the raw materials coming in

from Scunthorpe of steel. We bring 1,200 tonnes in at one time.

When was this set up, this plant?

1871, the plant was built.

Basically, an integrated steelworks

and basically, we've supplied steel to a lot of the

famous railway bridges.

If you look at the Tay Bridge disaster

that we had in the last century, this plant provided modern

good-quality steel for the rebuilding of that bridge.

If you look at the Forth Rail Bridge, we provided iron for this

bridge also, which is quite unbelievable that the structure

still stands today,

and to me is one of the wonders of the world.

The Forth Rail Bridge required a staggering 58,000 tonnes of steel.

The structure demonstrated the advantage of malleable steel

over brittle cast iron.

And so, really, unbelievable quantities of steel

have gone into these works.

Oh, more than a million tonnes into the North Sea alone.

And when you start to look at shipping, bridge building,

trains themselves, you have no idea of the quantities we are producing.

Over 130, 140 years of history. Quite unbelievable.

The company's first steel plant was the Dalzell steel

and iron works with 20 puddling furnaces employing 200 men.

Under the energetic direction of Mr Colville, it soon gained a

reputation for quality

and Motherwell gained its nickname of Steel-opolis.

Today, the Dalzell plate mill is one of only two

remaining in Motherwell.

What we have here is we have got 16 small furnaces and one very,

-very large furnace.

-Absolutely vast, isn't it?

What a scale this was built on.

The factory's rolling mill turns out up to 10,000 tonnes

of plate steel in a week.

Its customers come from construction, shipbuilding

and offshore engineering.

What am I going to see here, Colin?

What you're going to see, Michael, is a slab which has been unloaded,

treated and it's then going to come out of the socking patch,

it could be anything from three tonnes.

In fact we have got the capability to roll slabs up to 30 tons.

As you can see now, the operator is taking the lid off the furnace,

and the crane is going to go in and lift the slab.

The temperature inside the furnace is almost 1,000 Celsius.

As you can see, Michael, you can see the slab on the crane just now.

Roughly, the slab weighs 12 to 13 tonnes.

Those immense pinchers have gone in there.

It is a set of pinchers, we call them tongs,

which will lift the slab very carefully out of the furnace.

Oh, my goodness, that is an extraordinary sight.

What the crane will do is take the slab down onto the roller table.

Quite an alarming feeling to have a piece of molten steel rushing

-towards you like that.

-Absolutely, it is very, very warm.

-Feel the heat of that.

-Fantastic.

The slab is entering the descaling process.

This is where any impurities in the metal are removed

before the steel is rolled.

-As you see, the surface of the slab is now clean.

-Yes.

So you minimise any risk of rolling in some dirt in the mill.

It is a great feat of German engineering which was

put in during the '70s and modernised many times.

As you can see, it will go through here, we will do a number of passes

through the mill itself and that will go from slab form to plate form.

Those plates can be how thick?

The plates can be anything from 12 millimetres thick

up to about 200 millimetres.

And so you're putting it in again and again

and flattening it out bit by bit, down to the right thickness?

Yes. We will put it through the mill 15, 16, 17 times

to get to the gauge that we require.

I can understand why educated tourists in the 19th century

would gasp in awe visiting a plant like this.

I feel the continuity of history in a facility that manufactured

steel for the Titanic and the Lusitania

and still supply steel plate for British warships today.

I never saw anything on such a scale.

The crashes and bangs, the heat, the steam, the whole thing

is deeply impressive.

As I make tracks south, I am reminded that Scotland has long been

a land of contrasts, of heavy industry,

and picturesque countryside and it was this magnificence

of nature in the raw that literally made Victorian ladies swoon.

My next stop will be Lanark.

Bradshaw's tells me that travellers can visit the Falls of Clyde

and the romantic scenery in the neighbourhood.

Independent of the magnificent waterfalls, the beauty of the

country, and the picturesque views are a source of great attraction.

As even in rural Lanarkshire,

cotton mills began to spring up on the river banks.

Aesthetes yearned for preindustrial simplicity.

During the 18th century,

the grand European tour was a normal part of the education of young

aristocrats, but when the continent was put beyond bounds

during the Napoleonic Wars, Scotland became the fashionable destination.

The route between Edinburgh

and Lanark became popular with landscape lovers.

I am meeting local guide, Alison Galbraith.

Alison, Bradshaw's is ecstatic.

Corra Lin fall, 84 feet, considered by some to be

the finest of the falls.

"To describe the beauties of the scene is an almost impossible task,

"requiring the glowing language of a poet to do justice to them,"

and I think actually more than one poet came here in 1802.

Yes, Wordsworth and Coleridge, and Wordsworth's sister Dorothy as well.

They were doing their petite tour,

they had come from the Lake District

and were making their way around the beauty spots, everybody came

to the Falls of Clyde to see Corra Linn,

the largest waterfall in Britain.

Would this have been an arduous journey in those days?

I can't imagine it would have been easy,

because this was just before the trains that Dorothy and William

and Coleridge came, so they were definitely with a horse and trap.

Dorothy doesn't complain that it is arduous,

but they certainly got out and walked alongside their horse quite a lot.

Their trip in 1802 took six weeks and covered 663 miles.

It was a kind of literary pilgrimage for romantics.

I mean, you are in a lovely 19th-century costume here

and I imagine that actually your long skirt dragging in the mud,

-this would all have been quite inconvenient.

-Definitely.

I think the Victorian ladies must have had some metal

and spirit to do what they did.

Just having to hitch your skirts up to walk up the inclines is

exciting enough as it is, but a lot of the paths had 30 to 40 steps

chiselled down the gorge to the falls,

so they must have been very game.

Dorothy made notes on some of the journey's more challenging

aspects, describing the road quality as "most excellent" or "roughish",

or wretchedly bad.

But such hardship did not discourage this romantic trio.

Wordsworth wrote "Lord of the vale, astounding flood,

"the dullest leaf in this thick wood quakes conscious of thy power.

"The caves reply with hollow moan."

Clearly very impressed by the majesty of the place.

Yes, certainly when Dorothy and William where here, the full

force of the water would have come over and it really is quite a sight.

But the falls were tamed in 1926 by Britain's first hydroelectric

power station.

Situated between Corra Linn and Dundaff Linn,

this plant can generate up to 11 megawatts of power.

January and November, the force of the water would resemble what

Wordsworth and Coleridge were seeing back then.

J.M.W. Turner painted a classical scene of naked bathing beauties

here in 1802.

Just over 50 years later,

it was the Caledonian Railway that provoked controversy.

There's an interesting piece in one of the papers of the day that

describes how the gentleman on the other side of the falls,

Lord Cranston, complains about the cheap train tickets attracting

day visitors who are no longer welcome on his estate.

But Lady Mary Ross was from Bonnington House on this side

of the river, now the wildlife reserve.

She was instrumental in maintaining paths

and she actively encouraged the tourists to come.

They were also treated in the pavilion, to have cups of tea

and as they went in there, the mirrors on the ceiling reflected

the falls, so apparently ladies would swoon

and faint with the awesome view - it wouldn't be awesome back then,

though, would it? The majestic,

sublime view of water cascading down upon their heads.

In this television age, you don't see tourists swooning,

but they still travel to marvel at the falls.

Dorothy Wordsworth's recollections of a tour made in Scotland

remains a classic of picturesque travel writing.

The next stop on my journey is just downstream.

Bradshaw's tells me that no stranger ought to omit visiting

the far famed village of New Lanark.

It was established in 1784 by Robert Owen's father-in-law.

Robert Owen then acquired the village.

He was a philanthropist on his way to becoming a socialist.

For example, he would buy goods in bulk which could be sold

in the village shops to the workers at little more than cost price,

and that idea was the origin of the co-operative movement.

Within this beautifully restored 18th-century cotton mill,

which is part of the New Lanark World Heritage Site,

I'll find my bed for the night.

Excited by the prospect of a new day,

I've headed back to Lanark Station to take the train via Motherwell.

At my next destination, the railway station opened in 1848

and closed the following year because the village was too small.

You wouldn't say that any more about Cumbernauld.

Since I visited the steelworks at Motherwell, I have been

wondering what the workers drank to keep up their energy levels.

What brew was appropriate for those men of iron?

These days, Cumbernauld Station serves one of the most

populated areas of Scotland.

Since 2007, it has been home to one of Scotland's bestselling

soft drinks, born at the peak of the country's industrial boom.

I'm hitching a lift to Cumbernauld's Irn-Bru factory with

delivery driver John Spence, working my passage.

-Hello, John.

-Hello, sir, how are you doing?

-Good to see you.

You've been doing this a while, haven't you?

-Yeah, I've been doing it for 50 year.

-50 years?!

So what do you need if you're going to last in a job?

A sense of fun. Over and above that you need a good hand,

people that help you, like your van mate. I've been very lucky.

I've had some quite good van mates over the years.

Do you think I'll be up to the job?

Oh, yes, I'm positive you'll be up to the job.

You'll maybe even last 50 years the same as what I've done!

'I've always thought that whisky was Scotland's national drink

'but this concoction also lays claim to carry the saltire.'

-Here we go, Michael.

-Whoa, look at all that!

'In 1767, Englishman Joseph Priestley suspended a bowl

'of distilled water above a beer vat

'and discovered how to make carbonated water.

'The water had a pleasant taste

'and spawned an industry in fizzy drinks.'

Ah, you're doing great.

So would you like to take some stuff into the shop for us?

Oh, yes, please.

Right. Down.

Bring it in. Hold it.

-And then tilt it back.

-Whoa!

'This beverage owes its origin to the Barr family,

'who opened their first soft drink factory in Falkirk in 1875.'

And if you'd like to put them up on the shelves.

-Ah, you're doing a grand job, Michael.

-Ah, thank you!

Don't smash any of them!

THEY LAUGH

You need real bottle to do this job.

'And just as in Bradshaw's day, the bottles are recycled.'

Well, here we go, Michael, we'll get the empties on the lorry.

Oops!

-One down.

-Health and safety.

I've had nothing to do at this delivery.

The destination for our empty bottles is

the state-of-the-art factory at Cumbernauld which,

since it opened, has produced almost 200 million litres of soft drinks.

Despite its scale, this is still a family firm

and Robin Barr is showing me where my empties will go.

Well, this is the return of a bottle line here which is, I think,

the only returnable bottle line left in the UK.

-The customer gets money back if he brings a bottle back?

-Yes, they do.

This was the only pack in 1875

and it was the only pack that soft drinks were sold in

right up to the 1960s.

'When the Barr family opened its first soft drinks factory

'it was one of hundreds of Scottish manufacturers, selling to men

'and women doing tough physical work in the crowded industrial towns.'

What was the appeal of the product in those days?

It had a lot of appeals, it was obviously a nice refreshment,

as it is today.

Partly, it gave a lot of energy because of the sugar content.

And the quantity of energy was quite important,

but also there was a slight safety factor,

that most soft drinks manufacturers were based on a site where there was

a well, and the quality of the water was therefore guaranteed to be pure.

'To make the most of this natural ingredient,

'the manufacturers took full advantage of everything

'that 19th-century technology had to offer.'

-Do you make use of the railways?

-We did in 1875.

But most, if not all, of our main supplies

came from the south of England, from London.

It was a firm, Reilly, who made machinery,

there was a firm, Stephenson and Howe who made essences,

from whom we still buy essences today and all these supplies

in 1875 would have come up on the railway line to Falkirk.

'In the early years, the Barr family produced all sorts of drinks,

'from lemonade to ginger beer.

'But one particular brand sealed their fortune.'

Your most famous product, when was that developed?

That was in Victorian times, and was introduced to a recipe

that my great-grandfather

and my great uncle put together themselves.

-Do you know that recipe?

-Yes, I do, it's still a family secret.

I had it passed it down to me by my father

and I've now passed it through to my daughter,

so that there will be a continuation even when I'm gone.

The magic formula soon became a hit.

Thanks in part to innovative marketing featuring

the nation's most famous athletes.

The name... Is it connected with the steam industry?

I suppose it is, in the sense that clearly people made

an association with the heavy industries in Scotland at that time,

the iron and steel and shipbuilding industries.

-Does it have any iron in it?

-Oh, yes, it does.

Ammonium ferric citrate is one of the ingredients.

And what does that do for you?

I don't know, if I say it puts hairs on your chest

I won't sell much Irn-Bru to the ladies!

MICHAEL LAUGHS

Back on board,

I'm eastward bound for West Lothian's county town.

I'm on my way to Linlithgow.

Bradshaw says, "This county does not possess that romantic scenery

"for which the Scottish mountains are celebrated.

"But the estates are laid out in the very best of taste.

"In every quarter, the Forth River assumes a singular variety

"of aspects - hills, promontories, winding bays, lofty shores."

The Scottish rivers are highly attractive

but not very suitable for shipping.

That was a problem until the canals came along.

'Linlithgow is the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots.

'And its palace was home to the Stewart kings.

'I'm interested in its more recent past and I'm meeting Mike Smith,

'who is chairman of the Linlithgow Union Canal Society.'

-Permission to board.

-Please do.

'The Union Canal was built to provide a direct inland connection

'between Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as between the coasts.

'It was constructed in 1818

'at a cost of almost half a million pounds.'

Mike, what was the impact of the canals on Scotland?

In its local areas where they were, quite astonishing, this was

the sudden access of a motorway between the major cities of Scotland,

this canal. And of course, the Forth and Clyde Canal,

between the two great estuaries, made a tremendous difference,

particularly to the fishing fleets,

because they could follow the fish either side of the country,

by going through the Forth and Clyde as a ship canal.

-What were the cargoes?

-Mostly coal. Ironstone.

And what they called freestone, which is a stone

that's easily made into buildings.

A huge appetite for that in Edinburgh.

And the Slamannan Railway,

which terminated at a basin on this canal, which

was a joint venture between the canal company and the railway company,

used to bring these materials up from the North Lanarkshire

coal fields and put them on the boats and take them into Edinburgh

lock-free. It was well worth investing in that railway

because it halved the journey distance

and knocked 75% off the time involved.

'The resourcefulness and imagination of the men who designed

'the canals never fails to amaze me.

'The engineers Hugh Baird and his mentor Thomas Telford came up with

'impressive navigation solutions.

'64 stone bridges and three major aqueducts enable a continuous

'ribbon of water to run through the land.'

This canal was lock-free all the way to the end at Falkirk

and there was a single flight of 11 locks down to join the Forth

and Clyde, but the whole idea of gathering them there was

that the rest of the canal should be rapid transport.

'With a 35 metre difference in height, it required 3,500 tonnes

'of water per run and took most of the day to pass through the flight.'

I suppose the locks were the thing that slowed down the freight.

Absolutely, and that is why this was built as a contour canal.

-What was the locomotion?

-On the canal? This canal? Horses.

Exclusively horses.

It didn't survive commercially long enough to get mechanised.

'With growing competition from the railways, the canal declined

'and was eventually closed.

'But thanks to the Millennium Link project,

'in 2001 the canal was triumphantly reopened

'and Mike wants me to see a marvel of the 21st century.'

Well, here we are at the top of the Falkirk Wheel.

I've never seen a structure like that.

It looks as though we're just going to go off the end.

It does, doesn't it? But I hope we're not!

So, in one go, we are going to do the equivalent of 11 locks.

Effectively, yes.

We are an amazing height.

Any idea how far we go down?

-It's just short of 100 feet.

-Just short of 100 feet. Wow.

Each case in the big tub that we are sitting in,

each is identical in size and when they're full of water,

they are identical in weight. So the thing is perfectly balanced.

So, in principle, you could just give it a little shove

and it would slowly rotate under momentum.

'It works according to the Archimedes' principle of displacement.

'The boat will displace its own weight of water in the tub

'so that the weight of boat plus water in the rising tub is

'balanced by the one descending.

'Now that's what I call clever.'

'And it's also, to my mind, extremely beautiful.'

Mike, I think that is the weirdest feeling.

We have a very gradually sunk down but actually watching

the other case rise, that is going past us quite fast, isn't it?

Yes. It's odd, how points of view differ.

-A massive piece of machinery.

-Huge, isn't it?

William Wordsworth might lament the railway age, which brought

hordes of tourists to beauty spots like the Falls of Clyde,

but in truth, there had been a transport revolution

before the Victorians,

when a brilliant generation of engineers built the canals.

A young cartographer who was in awe of their achievements

began his career by mapping them.

His name was George Bradshaw.

Next time, I visit the scene of a bloody battle...

And eventually the English are forced back to a position where

they are in complete chaos.

'..enjoy a lesson in the skills of an ancient craft...'

-It doesn't sound like it sounded with you.

-You need more porridge.

More porridge!

'..and soothe my traveller's taste buds.'

Mm, I'm slipping into ecstasy.

Very, very fruity. Lovely.