0:00:09 > 0:00:13For more than 100 years, steam trains drove Britain.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16They carried freight from mines and quarries
0:00:16 > 0:00:20and people between cities, towns and villages.
0:00:26 > 0:00:29Then, after World War Two,
0:00:29 > 0:00:33branch lines were closed and steam phased out.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Some people refused to accept it.
0:00:35 > 0:00:42They joined together to rescue old steam engines and re-lay some of the redundant tracks.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47We had scythes and bill hooks...
0:00:47 > 0:00:49shovels and rakes, and, er...
0:00:49 > 0:00:53we just slashed at anything that was in the way.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59I had a couple of flatmates and they went up.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02And when they came back they said, "Oh, it was awful!
0:01:02 > 0:01:05"We had to stay in this hut in the middle of nowhere, under the mountains."
0:01:05 > 0:01:09And I thought, "Hut, mountains! Yes, please!"
0:01:11 > 0:01:17And some of these intrepid volunteers even filmed their exploits.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20I started taking films to record the disappearing scene.
0:01:20 > 0:01:25Cos, obviously, if you didn¹t take a film of it, it wouldn't be there next week.
0:01:25 > 0:01:31As word of their work spread, they helped millions of people reconnect with a lost world
0:01:31 > 0:01:34that had once touched everyone¹s life.
0:01:34 > 0:01:37This is the story of how they did it,
0:01:37 > 0:01:43how this motley band of railway visionaries gave Britain its second, golden age of steam.
0:01:44 > 0:01:47TRAIN WHISTLES
0:01:55 > 0:01:57CHATTERING VOICES
0:02:05 > 0:02:09It¹s mid July in Tywyn, North Wales, home to the Talyllyn Railway -
0:02:09 > 0:02:13the world¹s first railway owned and run by volunteers.
0:02:17 > 0:02:20There is your ticket. That's the adult and that's your two children.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23Thank you very much! Thank you.
0:02:25 > 0:02:28It¹s going to be busy and a mile up the line, at Pendre,
0:02:28 > 0:02:33the three engines rostered for the day are being prepared by some of those volunteers,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36including trainee fireman Holly Parrott.
0:02:36 > 0:02:42It¹s the fireman¹s job to make sure the engine has enough coal and water, and keep it clean.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Get up early in the morning and we start by cleaning the engine from the previous day.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49Removing all the dirt, all the grass seeds, all the old oil.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52Making it nice and clean for our visits today and our passengers.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57During the week, Holly works in banking.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00Volunteering on the Talyllyn is her holiday.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04You could go abroad, but you just sit on the beach and do nothing. I'm achieving something.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06I'm learning. I'm having a great time with great people.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10It's the rawness of it, the back to basics.
0:03:10 > 0:03:14Although it's quite technical on how it works,
0:03:14 > 0:03:17it's been going for hundreds of years, over 100 years,
0:03:17 > 0:03:20and it's still done on the same principle.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23And, yeah, British engineering at its best, really.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32They've got a life of their own.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37They're rather like an animal, because you've got to do what they want you to do.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41You can't just go. Er, she's a challenge every day.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Charlie Daniel has been around a bit longer than Holly.
0:03:48 > 0:03:54I first came here, I think, in 1955, and started to work here.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56And I've been here...
0:03:56 > 0:04:00fairly regularly, you know, ever since.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04And I was a fireman in 1958,
0:04:04 > 0:04:07when I was only just about 14.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20These days there are hundreds of volunteers on the Talyllyn,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24but when Charlie first got involved there were just a few.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29What fired their imagination was a passion to save something that they saw disappearing...
0:04:29 > 0:04:31TRAIN WHISTLES
0:04:31 > 0:04:34..the world of the narrow-gauge steam railway.
0:04:36 > 0:04:40When we think of railways today, we think of the big passenger trains
0:04:40 > 0:04:43that run on tracks four feet, eight and a half inches apart.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46They are known as standard gauge.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50But the tracks on the Talyllyn are less than half the width of the standard gauge.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53It¹s called a narrow-gauge railway.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03There used to be narrow-gauge railways working in industries right across Britain.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08The Talyllyn was built in the middle of the 19th century to serve one of the hundreds of slate quarries
0:05:08 > 0:05:12that once covered these remote hills in North Wales.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23The North Wales slate quarries,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25basically, put a roof on the world.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28It was an industry, not of local proportions,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31but of global proportions.
0:05:31 > 0:05:37Each of them had internal railway systems sprawling, labyrinthine,
0:05:37 > 0:05:40networks of narrow-gauge railways
0:05:40 > 0:05:43with scores of little engines and thousands of wagons
0:05:43 > 0:05:48at work day and night taking out the quarried slate.
0:05:48 > 0:05:54They each had a narrow-gauge railway which ran to the local port,
0:05:54 > 0:05:56where the slate was exported in ships.
0:06:00 > 0:06:06One or two steam enthusiasts managed to capture the vast scale of these quarries and their railways on film.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13We booked up first and had a guided tour.
0:06:13 > 0:06:15We made a mistake there.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Cos we found out everybody else went over the fence and stayed all day.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22We got rushed round the quarry by a guide who wanted to go home for his tea!
0:06:22 > 0:06:25So that was a bit of a disadvantage.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29We did have the advantage that he took us to places that you wouldn't have been able to go
0:06:29 > 0:06:33and we actually went up one of the long rope-worked inclines on a man-riding car,
0:06:33 > 0:06:36which was quite impressive.
0:06:36 > 0:06:39Right up the top, you could look down into the quarry,
0:06:39 > 0:06:44where it was so deep, people were just like little tiny pins.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48And you could see these little tiny trains moving about.
0:06:56 > 0:07:01As well as slate, a few of these narrow-gauge railways in North Wales carried passengers.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04The Talyllyn was one of them.
0:07:06 > 0:07:10It was built to serve a small quarry called Brynglas.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13The line ran from a wharf at Tywyn on the coast.
0:07:22 > 0:07:28It climbed for almost eight miles through delightful countryside that included a waterfall at Dolgoch.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40There was a passenger terminus at the village of Abergonolwyn
0:07:40 > 0:07:42and the quarry was a mile further up the line.
0:07:45 > 0:07:49During the early years of the 20th century, output declined
0:07:49 > 0:07:54and, by the 1940s, there was hardly any slate being brought down at all.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59After the First World War, slate quarrying throughout Wales
0:07:59 > 0:08:03went into decline, serious decline in some cases.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07But the passenger service on the Talyllyn Railway carried on.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12They served only a very thinly populated valley and small farming communities
0:08:12 > 0:08:16and what was left of the slate quarrying trade, which didn't add up to much.
0:08:17 > 0:08:23Both the line and Brynglas quarry had been bought by the local MP, Sir Henry Haydn Jones.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28When he finally closed the quarry in 1947,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30he kept the railway running,
0:08:30 > 0:08:35but with lack of investment it quickly began to deteriorate.
0:08:43 > 0:08:49Then Tom Rolt, a man already well known for his campaign to rescue Britain¹s canals
0:08:49 > 0:08:54and an avid steam enthusiast, paid it a visit.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56One of the things he found when he got to Wharf station
0:08:56 > 0:08:58was a sign saying "No trains today".
0:08:58 > 0:09:02So he wasn't able to actually go up the line by train.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05But he did something which he regarded
0:09:05 > 0:09:09as more useful for later purposes, which was, he ended up walking up the line.
0:09:16 > 0:09:21And he walked up the line and said that he'd never seen an apparently working railway
0:09:21 > 0:09:25in such appalling condition. It was more like walking up a country lane.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34And so he wrote a letter to the Birmingham Post and he said,
0:09:34 > 0:09:38"There's this lovely little railway in Wales.
0:09:38 > 0:09:43"It's held together on a shoestring and we are going to lose it.
0:09:43 > 0:09:47"Does anybody else feel like helping out and saving it?"
0:09:49 > 0:09:52A meeting was held at a hotel in Birmingham,
0:09:52 > 0:09:55and it was packed out, and everybody who turned up said,
0:09:55 > 0:10:00"Yes, we would like to get involved in saving this little railway."
0:10:02 > 0:10:05Tom Rolt chose his venue well.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10North Wales was a popular holiday destination for people from the Birmingham area.
0:10:10 > 0:10:13The outcome of that meeting was momentous.
0:10:13 > 0:10:20Rolt and the others formed the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society, with a committee of 15.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23When, in 1950, Sir Henry Haydn Jones died,
0:10:23 > 0:10:27they resolved, with his widow, to save the Talyllyn.
0:10:27 > 0:10:33For the first time anywhere in the world, a band of volunteers planned to run a passenger railway.
0:10:42 > 0:10:47Tom Rolt¹s view of the Talyllyn was shaped by what was happening in post-war Britain.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51In 1948, the Labour Government had nationalised the railways
0:10:51 > 0:10:57and Rolt saw the Talyllyn as an alternative to what he believed to be increasing state control.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02There was this idea, in a way, that this was a small enclave
0:11:02 > 0:11:05from which to perhaps build and defend
0:11:05 > 0:11:11and take on this grey-uniformed, state-driven world outside.
0:11:12 > 0:11:17Most of the people involved came very much from middle-class, professional backgrounds.
0:11:17 > 0:11:22I think one could call them probably highly conservative people in many ways.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27They were very much people who disapproved, I think, of nationalisation of railways.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31They saw this as producing a sort of grey uniformity.
0:11:31 > 0:11:35And I think they disapproved of much of the post-war world - nationalisation,
0:11:35 > 0:11:37the welfare state, greater equality.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43Although, much later on, the Talyllyn Railway was described as a "workers' co-operative",
0:11:43 > 0:11:47these were extremely conservative workers, to put it mildly.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53Whatever their politics, they planned to open the railway in spring 1951.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57But they were desperately short of hands-on volunteers.
0:11:57 > 0:12:04One of the first to respond was a 22-year-old civil engineer, John Bate.
0:12:08 > 0:12:14I had a week¹s holiday spare, cos I was working up at Sellafield, the nuclear plant.
0:12:14 > 0:12:18And they had a shut-down week, so I had to go somewhere and came here.
0:12:18 > 0:12:23And I enjoyed myself so much and I found so much needed doing,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26and so few people with any engineering knowledge,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29that I became part of the furniture, as it were.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35John first came here in July 1951,
0:12:35 > 0:12:37and he¹s been here off and on ever since,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41including 31 years as chief engineer.
0:12:41 > 0:12:45Right from the beginning he kept a diary of his work.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48"Talyllyn. Dairy of Week.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52"28/7/51. Saturday.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55"Met Mr Rolt. Started work with McGuire and Geoff.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59"Replaced two sleepers 200 yards north of Tywyn Pendre station.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01"Worked 2.00 to 5.30pm."
0:13:01 > 0:13:03It's all there.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09"Monday. Bought a spirit level." HE LAUGHS
0:13:09 > 0:13:13They hadn't got a level and the track was all over the place.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23The track might have been all over the place,
0:13:23 > 0:13:28but it didn¹t stop the volunteers from opening the world¹s first preserved railway,
0:13:28 > 0:13:32on schedule, on May the 14th, 1951.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45The track was buried in the grass.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47There were sleepers here and there,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51but really it was the turf that kept the rails in place.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54And the joints were terrible.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58Some rails were completely free at the joints and could wander up and down.
0:14:09 > 0:14:14The carriages were not too bad, but the only locomotive was Dolgoch,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18and it was in an advanced state of disrepair.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27When the inspector looked at the railway in 1952,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31he said, "Well, if it wasn't open, I wouldn't allow it to open.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35"But as it's still running, I suppose it had better carry on."
0:14:35 > 0:14:37It was in such an appalling condition.
0:14:39 > 0:14:45When David Mitchell joined as a volunteer in the 1950s he was just 14 years old.
0:14:46 > 0:14:51First of all, I tended to come on working parties, which were mainly winter.
0:14:51 > 0:14:56And at Easter, particularly, we would spend our time digging ballast in the quarry.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00Then we'd come down after school on Friday night.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04I don't quite remember when I did my homework. Probably didn't!
0:15:14 > 0:15:20In 1953, a serious amateur film-maker, an American called Carson Davidson, turned up
0:15:20 > 0:15:24and wanted to make a film of the Talyllyn Railway.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29TRAIN WHISTLES
0:15:29 > 0:15:34It's a remarkable record of the railway as it was in 1953.
0:15:36 > 0:15:40He was on one train where the loco actually derailed.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47After all those years of Welsh weather, cross-ties decay,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50spikes get looser, rails spread dangerously.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53Finally, a wheel jumps the tracks and then...
0:15:53 > 0:15:56METALLIC CLANGING
0:15:58 > 0:16:01It's the only bit of the film that isn't properly exposed,
0:16:01 > 0:16:03because he was obviously just looking out when it happened
0:16:03 > 0:16:05and grabbed the camera and took it.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Derailed.
0:16:09 > 0:16:12A long, exhilarating mountain walk ahead.
0:16:13 > 0:16:16The gauge is supposed to be two feet three inches.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20When it isn't, there's almost always trouble.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23He was wandering around, shooting.
0:16:23 > 0:16:26And if he saw something interesting, he shot it.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Perhaps like as you're doing now!
0:16:35 > 0:16:40I appeared in it in one or two places, doing some wagon repairs.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44That's John controlling the points.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47They were putting wheels under some open carriage bodies
0:16:47 > 0:16:50that had come from the Penrhyn Quarry Railway.
0:16:50 > 0:16:55John is seen there taking the axle boxes off a slate wagon
0:16:55 > 0:16:58and, again, a lovely bit of phraseology.
0:16:58 > 0:17:04They also serve who only stand and bash things with a sledge hammer.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09It's just charming. I can't think of a better word to sum it up.
0:17:10 > 0:17:16It's something that shows the early days of railway preservation, the enthusiasm there.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23This then is the Talyllyn Railway and its preservation society -
0:17:23 > 0:17:29men who have found a challenge and take a special sort of joy in answering it.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32They found a railway which was crumbling slowly into dust
0:17:32 > 0:17:34and made it come alive again.
0:17:34 > 0:17:40And it may just be that another generation will thank them for preserving the Talyllyn.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48People did thank them and turned up in droves.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52What the new railway offered was the opportunity for those with modest means
0:17:52 > 0:17:54to get really involved with steam.
0:17:54 > 0:17:57The only place to do that before 1951
0:17:57 > 0:18:01had been the garden, if you were very rich, or in a club.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13Max Sinclair was typical.
0:18:13 > 0:18:19He got his "fix" of steam by being secretary of his local model engineers society.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22In the 1950s, most cities had a model railway club,
0:18:22 > 0:18:26open to anyone who could afford the modest membership fee.
0:18:26 > 0:18:31People would take along engines they had built or just go to the open days for the thrill of a ride
0:18:31 > 0:18:33on a miniature steam engine.
0:18:37 > 0:18:42In 1955, Max filmed the opening of his club in Diglis Park in Worcester.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48Having completed the construction, we decided to have an open day,
0:18:48 > 0:18:52and we invited the Mayor, Rosa Radcliffe, to come along.
0:18:52 > 0:18:58She was a jolly sort and she made all the little speeches.
0:18:58 > 0:19:04The next thing, she lifted a leg and jumped on the train. We were amazed.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06So we took her round the track.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17I think from childhood I'd been a railway nutter.
0:19:18 > 0:19:23I think it must be the thing that switches on all steam enthusiasts.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25You take an inert thing like water
0:19:25 > 0:19:30and you make a train go at 120 miles an hour!
0:19:35 > 0:19:38Max¹s chance to get involved with bigger railways
0:19:38 > 0:19:42began with a visit to another steam and home movie enthusiast,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45his GP, Brian Rogers.
0:19:46 > 0:19:50I went to see him because I had some problems with my wrist.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54And he said, "What are you doing next weekend?"
0:19:54 > 0:19:57I said, "Well, I'm putting a model railway round my garden."
0:19:57 > 0:20:01He said, "Oh no, you're not. You're coming to Ffestiniog with us!"
0:20:07 > 0:20:12The Ffestiniog Railway in the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales
0:20:12 > 0:20:15was 40 miles north of the Talyllyn.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20It was the world¹s first narrow-gauge steam railways.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23It ran for 22 miles from the harbour at Porthmadog,
0:20:23 > 0:20:27climbing 700 feet to the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog.
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Like the Talyllyn, it carried passengers as well as slate,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42but numbers fell in the '30s.
0:20:47 > 0:20:51Passenger traffic ended in 1939
0:20:51 > 0:20:56and after a long and slow decline the railway closed in 1946.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04For almost eight years nothing much happened,
0:21:04 > 0:21:09until volunteers reopened it in 1954.
0:21:09 > 0:21:13Max and Dr Rogers were amongst the first enthusiasts.
0:21:13 > 0:21:16They found the railway abandoned.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19They left their tools, their overalls,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21everything hanging up in the workshops.
0:21:21 > 0:21:26The job they were working on. Locomotives stored outside in the rain.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31And then, of course, the growth started - brambles, grass.
0:21:31 > 0:21:37And it was an invisible, green railway when we started.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42Their films and photographs captured the state of dereliction on the line
0:21:42 > 0:21:45and the spirit of the voluntary effort.
0:21:45 > 0:21:50That was our First World War locomotive called a Simplex.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53They were used in the trenches for moving ammunition.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56Of course, at the end of the war, most of them were scrapped.
0:21:56 > 0:22:01But one or two survived and we managed to acquire one for the railway.
0:22:01 > 0:22:08And it was able to play an important job before we could get steam engines working.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13We were a work party there, getting the station into some sort of order.
0:22:13 > 0:22:17We planned to sleep inside the ticket office and waiting room,
0:22:17 > 0:22:23but when we lit the fire in there, the moisture started coming out of the walls
0:22:23 > 0:22:25and soon it was like a thick fog.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29And Mrs Jones and Mr Jones, the station master, who had been there,
0:22:29 > 0:22:32they were still living in the house.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36They came round to see us and were absolutely horrified.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38They said, "No way can you sleep in there!
0:22:38 > 0:22:42"You can come through and sleep in our lounge."
0:22:42 > 0:22:47Which we did. We all curled up in our sleeping bags in rows like sardines.
0:22:50 > 0:22:54The basic living appealed to volunteers of all ages.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58I read an article in a railway magazine,
0:22:58 > 0:23:00saying they needed volunteers.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04And with two other school friends - we were by then 14 -
0:23:04 > 0:23:06we decided to come and work on the railway.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09And we came up to Wales for two weeks and worked on the railway,
0:23:09 > 0:23:12and I've been hooked on this railway ever since.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18It seemed just like the Talyllyn, a derelict decrepit railway
0:23:18 > 0:23:21and a band of volunteers ready to bring it back to life.
0:23:21 > 0:23:24But there were differences.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31Well, the Ffestiniog had a very different sort of structure from the Talyllyn.
0:23:31 > 0:23:36Primarily, because there was a Ffestiniog Railway Company
0:23:36 > 0:23:41and a society which involved voluntary enthusiasts.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44And there was a fair amount of conflict between
0:23:44 > 0:23:48those running the company, who would issue orders from a distance,
0:23:48 > 0:23:51and some of the volunteers.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57In 1955, Alan Garraway became the full-time, paid manager
0:23:57 > 0:23:59employed by the company.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02That¹s Alan driving the Simplex.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06My father was a railwayman, at Cambridge.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09And I used to go around with Dad
0:24:09 > 0:24:14to the various depots that he was in charge of,
0:24:14 > 0:24:18and I had got this in my blood and it just grew with me.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25Alan had been a professional railwayman in the army and on British Rail.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28He had a very distinct perspective.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31He did not approve of rail enthusiasts.
0:24:31 > 0:24:36He said, "We are enthusiastic railwaymen, not rail enthusiasts."
0:24:37 > 0:24:43He ran a tight ship and expected those who were involved to get on and work.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46And wasn't interested in time-wasters.
0:24:46 > 0:24:51So he said to us, as 14 year olds, "Be here at nine o'clock in the morning."
0:24:51 > 0:24:55And, er, you know, that's what he expected.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59If we were late, he basically said, "Don't bother to come."
0:25:00 > 0:25:05I think people used to think me a bit of a hard task master.
0:25:05 > 0:25:12And I was, cos I believed that if a job has got to be done,
0:25:12 > 0:25:14it has got to be done properly.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19And I wasn't going to have people coming along
0:25:19 > 0:25:23and running my engines just any old how.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29We started off here in 1955,
0:25:29 > 0:25:36with Prince, two coaches running a shuttle service across the Cob at Porthmadog.
0:25:36 > 0:25:41Then in 1956, we got it running to two miles to Minffordd.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46In 1957, we got three miles to Penrhyn.
0:25:46 > 0:25:48It got more and more successful.
0:25:48 > 0:25:54We had queues out of the booking office at Porthmadog every afternoon.
0:25:54 > 0:26:00And this was our greatest trouble, was to carry the people who wanted to travel on the railway.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07It was the same story here on the Talyllyn.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12And in the summer of 1957, the trouble was about to get worse -
0:26:12 > 0:26:14the BBC turned up.
0:26:17 > 0:26:20That¹s the first time I've ever had to fish for a microphone.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24But, surely, this is the right place to do it, alongside a lovely Welsh trout stream,
0:26:24 > 0:26:30which comes tumbling down this gorge of Dolgoch right in the very heart of the Welsh mountains.
0:26:30 > 0:26:36The corporation sent an outside broadcast unit and two of its biggest presenters,
0:26:36 > 0:26:41Hugh Weldon and Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, to present a programme live from the railway.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44And, above us, the mountains...
0:26:44 > 0:26:47The technology of time, of course, was very primitive.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50The film, in places, isn't very good,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54because, obviously, the reception came and went.
0:26:54 > 0:26:58But 1957 must have been quite early for outside broadcasts,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01particularly from somewhere in mid-Wales.
0:27:02 > 0:27:08But luckily one of the members made a high-quality colour film of the making of the outside broadcast.
0:27:09 > 0:27:15And there¹s one lovely bit where they'd taken the glass out of the spectacle plate of Number 4.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17So Lord Northesk, who was president,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21could sort of hold on with his hand through where the glass would be,
0:27:21 > 0:27:26in order to be interviewed looking backwards by Hugh Weldon.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Tell me, are you always the fireman on this engine?
0:27:28 > 0:27:34No, I share the job with about six or seven other members who've been passed as a fireman.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38- You're a qualified fireman, are you? - Yes, qualified fireman. We've learnt the job.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41TRAIN WHISTLES
0:27:42 > 0:27:47There is a sequence where they've got all these sheep at Abergynolwyn, which are clearly out of control!
0:27:47 > 0:27:51Lord Northesk! Could I have a word with you down here?
0:27:51 > 0:27:53HE LAUGHS
0:27:53 > 0:27:58Come and join us a minute. There we are. One thing I wanted to ask you very much indeed...
0:27:58 > 0:28:01In a way... Those sheep are all over the place!
0:28:01 > 0:28:04In a way... It's rather impertinent, perhaps.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09What I want to know is, how can you keep a society of this sort going
0:28:09 > 0:28:15when the basis must really be, mustn't it, that everyone wants to be an engine driver?
0:28:15 > 0:28:19There's really a job for everyone on this little line. They have something...
0:28:19 > 0:28:24The technology might not have been great and the sheep and their minders a distraction,
0:28:24 > 0:28:28but the programme itself did wonders for the Talyllyn.
0:28:30 > 0:28:33DOGS BARKING
0:28:33 > 0:28:36After the programme, our traffic virtually doubled overnight.
0:28:36 > 0:28:43And panic. I was phoned up at work down in the London area by our engineering director, Bill Faulkner.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48And he said, "We must build some more carriages quickly. What can you do?"
0:28:48 > 0:28:52So I sat down there and sketched out a design in the office.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55Went back to the digs in the evening and made a proper drawing.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58Sent it to Bill the next day with a list of materials.
0:28:58 > 0:29:02And about three weeks later, the materials arrived and we started building it.
0:29:02 > 0:29:05Right there, on the pit.
0:29:05 > 0:29:11While carriages were relatively easy to build, finding steam engines to pull them was a major headache.
0:29:16 > 0:29:20As the popularity of both the Talyllyn and the Ffestiniog grew,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23so did their need for more engines.
0:29:23 > 0:29:28Up until the 1940s, industrial Britain had been awash with them.
0:29:33 > 0:29:36Passenger trains ferried people about the country,
0:29:36 > 0:29:39but narrow-gauge railways drove industry.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41They had been everywhere.
0:29:44 > 0:29:48It was the most cost effective and, indeed, the only way
0:29:48 > 0:29:53of moving bulk loads of raw materials.
0:29:53 > 0:29:57They could go round hills, over mountains,
0:29:57 > 0:30:02through valleys and could be built fairly cheaply and effectively
0:30:02 > 0:30:04in a short space of time.
0:30:04 > 0:30:09Serving quarries, collieries, small factories
0:30:09 > 0:30:14and taking produce down to the nearest port of conveyance.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23In the English Midlands, they had been prolific,
0:30:23 > 0:30:27helping dig out huge amounts of ironstone for the steel industry.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37These little narrow-gauge steam engines,
0:30:37 > 0:30:41they were the life blood, they were the beating heart, of the ironstone industry.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45Without that, you would not have been able to expand the quarries
0:30:45 > 0:30:52to the level of production which provided the income for huge towns, like Corby or Kettering.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00We went to the Kettering Ironstone Furnace Railway.
0:31:00 > 0:31:03It was a filthy day, pouring with rain.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07But you got these trains appearing out of the mist.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11There were two big engines working the main trains
0:31:11 > 0:31:16and a little tiny Black Hawthorn saddle tank without a cab working the shunting.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19And the chap on it had got a mac on and he was getting drenched.
0:31:19 > 0:31:23And he told us that none of them had cabins on originally.
0:31:23 > 0:31:28But the company decided that staff deserved protection and they put cabs on.
0:31:28 > 0:31:32But the man who drove the little shunting engine at that time was a big he-man
0:31:32 > 0:31:35and he wasn't having a sissy cab on his locomotive.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38And he said the rest of us have cursed him ever since.
0:31:41 > 0:31:45We filmed the train coming in from the iron-ore fields.
0:31:45 > 0:31:49They had a steelworks there in the old days, but as the industry declined
0:31:49 > 0:31:51the steelworks had been demolished and removed,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54and they just tipped the iron ore into British Railway wagons
0:31:54 > 0:31:57to go off to places like Scunthorpe.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09Then, in the 1950s, after almost 100 years working at the heart of industry,
0:32:09 > 0:32:12steam began to disappear.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15As roads got better and lorries became bigger and more efficient,
0:32:15 > 0:32:20narrow-gauge railways were phased out. Britain was modernising.
0:32:24 > 0:32:29Factories, quarries, collieries and other industrial concerns
0:32:29 > 0:32:32that had private, internal railway systems
0:32:32 > 0:32:36were closing them down because they found that road transport
0:32:36 > 0:32:39provides the more cost-effective alternative.
0:32:39 > 0:32:41As a result,
0:32:41 > 0:32:44thousands of locomotives,
0:32:44 > 0:32:48wagons and rolling stock became redundant.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51Most were cut up or scrapped.
0:32:53 > 0:32:57They might have gone forever but for the efforts of two steam enthusiasts,
0:32:57 > 0:33:01who in the early 1960s championed the cause of narrow gauge.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05One was a rector from a parish in Leicestershire,
0:33:05 > 0:33:09the other was one of the Ffestiniog volunteers, Max Sinclair.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18I didn't like to see anything being destroyed.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23And I felt that if somebody designed and built a beautiful locomotive,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26I don't think we have a right to just chop it up.
0:33:26 > 0:33:31And so, when the opportunity came to save a railway engine,
0:33:31 > 0:33:35I went, wholeheartedly, into the project.
0:33:36 > 0:33:39His opportunity came in February 1959.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45I found this little Kerr Stuart on a farm not very far from here.
0:33:45 > 0:33:51So one Sunday morning, I went out and found the farmer, Mr Beard,
0:33:51 > 0:33:53and asked him about his engine.
0:33:53 > 0:34:00And he said, "Oh, we've got one somewhere, but it's under that pile of old apple trees we've grubbed up."
0:34:00 > 0:34:05I went round and couldn't believe it. There was a mountain of timber.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08Eventually, we found Brockamin
0:34:08 > 0:34:12with its funnel off and the water tank off.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16But we could see that it was, it was a restorable engine.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20And he said, "Well, if you promise to restore it, to not break it up, you can have it."
0:34:21 > 0:34:27It was a Kerr Stuart "Wren" and, with a friend, we started restoring it.
0:34:27 > 0:34:32Trying to restore it, we found we hadn't any spares.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36Max needed to research railway archives.
0:34:37 > 0:34:42Going through the railway books, we found people who'd got Kerr Stuart locos -
0:34:42 > 0:34:44industrial companies.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48And my wife and I would write to these people
0:34:48 > 0:34:52saying we were looking for spares for our engine.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57And the responses came back, "Well, we haven't got many spares, but we've got three locomotives."
0:34:59 > 0:35:02Discovering Brockamin set Max off on a quest
0:35:02 > 0:35:07that led to him restoring no less than 13 narrow-gauge engines,
0:35:07 > 0:35:09all of which he gave away.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15One of the first he came across was another Kerr Stuart engine
0:35:15 > 0:35:18rusting away in a quarry in Devon.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21It was called Peter Pan.
0:35:23 > 0:35:27These days it¹s kept at the narrow-gauge railway in Leighton Buzzard
0:35:27 > 0:35:30by its current owner Graham Morris.
0:35:33 > 0:35:36It was built in 1922.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39They built a lot of these. Nearly 170 of them.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42That was unusual because, in those days,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46people used to go to a railway engine manufacturer and order an engine.
0:35:46 > 0:35:48They were largely built specially, one-offs.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51These were built in bulk for stock.
0:35:51 > 0:35:54It's also very small. It's only about four tonne.
0:35:54 > 0:35:58And that was specifically to run on temporary railways.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02Max, he saved lots of these little engines.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06And he never intended really any credit for it.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09And he didn't intend to keep any. In fact, he didn't keep any.
0:36:09 > 0:36:12All he wanted to do was to stop the scrap man getting them.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17Having done so, he'd write letters to people he thought might like the engines,
0:36:17 > 0:36:19to try and find good homes for them.
0:36:22 > 0:36:29Max Sinclair might not have expected any credit for saving so many engines but Graham had other ideas.
0:36:30 > 0:36:33In 2009, together with others from the Leighton Buzzard,
0:36:33 > 0:36:38he presented a painting done by the renowned railway artist Jonathan Clay to Max.
0:36:38 > 0:36:42It depicted seven of the 13 engines he had rescued.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49There weren't many people in those days doing this sort of thing.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53It was very rare. Times were changing fast. People wanted to get rid of the old stuff.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55Nobody recognised its importance.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58There were other folk, but there weren't many.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09One of the few who did recognise the importance of steam
0:37:09 > 0:37:12and the need to spread the gospel of narrow-gauge engines
0:37:12 > 0:37:16was a home movie enthusiast and Rector of Cadeby,
0:37:16 > 0:37:20a small parish in Leicestershire, the Reverend Teddy Boston.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32He was plump, jolly.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36Not your idea of a clergyman at all.
0:37:36 > 0:37:38He was born in Solihull.
0:37:38 > 0:37:43He had a model railway in his bedroom that went up to the ceiling.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46You know, up and down again.
0:37:46 > 0:37:52Because his family were all into horses and this was the complete opposite to horses.
0:37:52 > 0:37:55And then they moved to Cambridge.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58And he went to Cambridge University, to Jesus College, Cambridge.
0:37:58 > 0:38:01And he formed the railway group there.
0:38:01 > 0:38:07And he had a model railway in his own garden and he pursued railways and steam whenever he could.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24By the time Teddy Boston died in 1986,
0:38:24 > 0:38:29his model railway had grown to be one of the biggest in the country.
0:38:29 > 0:38:34Today, it¹s looked after by two of his friends, Brian Gillespie and Peter Vernon.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37OK, send the fruit next, Brian, can you, please?
0:38:39 > 0:38:45Brian remembers the moment in 1962 when the Reverend Boston moved on from model railways
0:38:45 > 0:38:48to rescue a narrow-gauge steam engine called Pixie.
0:38:48 > 0:38:52Pixie is an 040 Bagnell.
0:38:52 > 0:38:55Built in 1919, for the War Department, to go to the trenches,
0:38:55 > 0:38:57but peace was declared and it never went.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01It ended up at one of the iron-ore companies at Cranford.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05Then Teddy used to see it on various visits to his parents at Cambridge.
0:39:07 > 0:39:13As in most of the Britain¹s mines and quarries, steam was being phased out. Pixie was standing idle.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19And he went and sort of knocked on the door. "Is Pixie for sale?"
0:39:19 > 0:39:22When they realised he wanted it to run it, not to scrap it, they said, "You can have it!"
0:39:27 > 0:39:31Teddy¹s plan was to run the engine round rails he would have to lay
0:39:31 > 0:39:35in the three-quarter acre garden, the rectory garden.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41To buy a narrow-gauge locomotive and put it in your garden
0:39:41 > 0:39:44was, sort of, unheard of.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47And then we started laying track,
0:39:47 > 0:39:53which... Half a day with a jim crow, which is the item used to bend rail,
0:39:53 > 0:39:57and a packing shovel, which pushes the ballast under the sleepers,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59you learn far more in that than reading all the manuals.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02Teddy says, "Let's see if we can get steam up."
0:40:02 > 0:40:05So we just lit the fire and then it was, "Anybody want a ride?"
0:40:05 > 0:40:08And that was the start of the Cadeby Light Railway.
0:40:22 > 0:40:24Brian was there from the outset.
0:40:30 > 0:40:35The railway opened to the public in 1963 and people flocked to it.
0:40:43 > 0:40:48We used to run the train till about five, half past five.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52Then we'd put Pixie away, eat fish and chips,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55and then we would have a film show, one of Teddy's film shows,
0:40:55 > 0:40:58which would go on till about one, two o'clock in the morning.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03I think the proximity of the graveyard always added a bit of atmosphere to Cadeby.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06Some people didn't like it, but on a foggy night, it was pretty good.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10One night, they'd dug an open grave ready for somebody to be buried.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13And I was backing my car out the drive in the fog.
0:41:13 > 0:41:16And as the lights came round, it suddenly picked up somebody climbing out the grave.
0:41:16 > 0:41:21It was the church warden, who'd put a ladder in there to check it was OK and hadn't got water in it.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23- HE LAUGHS - Wish I'd had a camera then!
0:41:30 > 0:41:35With help from lots of volunteers like Peter, Brian and Audrey,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38Teddy opened the rectory to the public every month.
0:41:44 > 0:41:49The Cadeby Light Railway drew thousands of people into the world of narrow gauge.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53Alongside Pixie, Teddy had other steam locomotives,
0:41:53 > 0:41:57a miniature railway, a steam roller and a traction engine.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07And, after May 1974, a wife!
0:42:08 > 0:42:13The wedding was a day to remember for everyone, not only for the bride and groom!
0:42:17 > 0:42:23The day began with a steam-driven lorry ferrying the bride-to-be to the ceremony.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28Admission to the church was by ticket only.
0:42:28 > 0:42:34It was relayed outside by loudspeakers, cos there were so many people, couldn't get them all in.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39Came out of church and all these hundreds of people were there
0:42:39 > 0:42:41and photographs, et cetera.
0:42:41 > 0:42:47But we didn't realise that all the steam boys had been beavering away while we were in church.
0:42:47 > 0:42:50And we walked through an archway of shovels.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55Crowds cheered the bride and groom as they left the church
0:42:55 > 0:43:01in a steam cavalcade that included Teddy¹s own traction engine and steam road roller.
0:43:02 > 0:43:07The day ended with a party, a real Boston tea party, in the village hall.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12Teddy actually wore shoes for the first time in his life then, I think,
0:43:12 > 0:43:15cos he was always in sandals.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21When he died and he was buried, I had the shoes...
0:43:21 > 0:43:24I asked the undertaker to put the shoes in the coffin,
0:43:24 > 0:43:27cos I wanted him to arrive duly shod.
0:43:33 > 0:43:39Audrey carried on the work of spreading Teddy¹s message long after he died.
0:43:42 > 0:43:45Today, Pixie no longer runs around the rectory.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48She is being restored.
0:43:48 > 0:43:52Meanwhile, she and Teddy are commemorated in the Cadeby village sign.
0:43:54 > 0:43:59Well, Audrey contacted me to say that the sign needs a little bit of TLC.
0:43:59 > 0:44:02And it had been up for 12 years.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06But it's cleaned up quite nicely.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09But...as you see,
0:44:09 > 0:44:12Basically, this is all relief carved.
0:44:12 > 0:44:15We glue together planks of oak.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17So, as you can see, it's got a little bit of depth to it.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22So even if, in 100 years' time, this paint had all gone,
0:44:22 > 0:44:25hopefully, the carving would still be there.
0:44:25 > 0:44:26..Two, three.
0:44:29 > 0:44:31OK?
0:44:32 > 0:44:35The sign that Audrey commissioned does more than just commemorate
0:44:35 > 0:44:38Teddy¹s contribution to steam preservation.
0:44:38 > 0:44:43It also captures the place that steam still has in many people¹s hearts.
0:44:44 > 0:44:50I think people have always loved steam engines and when they began to disappear off the railways,
0:44:50 > 0:44:53with the dieselation of the late '50s and '60s,
0:44:53 > 0:44:58people thought, "Hang on! We love these. We don't want to see them go!"
0:44:59 > 0:45:02They were like living, breathing creatures.
0:45:02 > 0:45:05They took people to work. They took them to the seaside.
0:45:05 > 0:45:10They took them people on days out, before people could afford to buy a car.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14They were part of an age in which people grew up and people identified with it.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17And they wanted to keep a little part of that.
0:45:20 > 0:45:24The place where people could really identify with steam was North Wales,
0:45:24 > 0:45:28where preservation was going from strength to strength.
0:45:29 > 0:45:35By 1965, volunteers on the Ffestiniog had managed to restore more than 10 miles of track
0:45:35 > 0:45:38and were halfway to their destination.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43Now, they faced a huge barrier.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57The problem was that while the line had been derelict,
0:45:57 > 0:45:59the electric authority came.
0:45:59 > 0:46:04It built a reservoir across the tracks, the Tanygrisiau, which blocked the line.
0:46:04 > 0:46:09And the reason this was a big problem was that the railway, originally,
0:46:09 > 0:46:15had a gradient between Ffestiniog and Tan-y-Bwlch.
0:46:15 > 0:46:18And this reservoir was higher than the railway.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22And the company didn't want to steepen the line, because if they steepened the line,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24the engines couldn't pull the same trains.
0:46:24 > 0:46:29So to solve that problem, we did some surveys
0:46:29 > 0:46:32and came up with the idea that you could build a loop.
0:46:32 > 0:46:35By building a loop, a spiral...
0:46:36 > 0:46:41it was possible to increase the length of the line and maintain the gradient,
0:46:41 > 0:46:44go round the lake and tie back into the original line.
0:46:44 > 0:46:51And so that was the project that was eventually adopted and it became known as the Deviation.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Gerald Fox was a volunteer at the time.
0:46:56 > 0:47:00This model shows the problem, and solution, he came up with.
0:47:00 > 0:47:06Trains heading for Blaenau Ffestiniog began on the old line on the left of the model,
0:47:06 > 0:47:10but would deviate to the right to go round in a big loop.
0:47:10 > 0:47:15It would make the line longer but the gradient or slope would be more gentle
0:47:15 > 0:47:19and therefore easier for trains to climb.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24The only problem they had was actually building it.
0:47:24 > 0:47:27The Deviation would be a huge engineering task,
0:47:27 > 0:47:33including a cutting, an embankment, a bridge and finally a tunnel through solid granite.
0:47:33 > 0:47:37It was something that had never before been attempted by volunteers anywhere.
0:47:38 > 0:47:43Inevitably, not everyone on the railway was happy about the plan.
0:47:43 > 0:47:46They were a bit awkward at times,
0:47:46 > 0:47:51cos they had no idea and they didn't interact with the railway very well.
0:47:51 > 0:47:54That was the trouble.
0:47:54 > 0:47:59They had to come into Tan-y-Bwlch station with their wagons and one thing and another.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02And there was friction.
0:48:21 > 0:48:23So we agreed
0:48:23 > 0:48:25that if the project was going to go ahead,
0:48:25 > 0:48:31we'd recruit labour from outside the established source of volunteers.
0:48:31 > 0:48:33So what we sought were digging enthusiasts -
0:48:33 > 0:48:38people who wanted a weekend in Wales doing something physical
0:48:38 > 0:48:40that would get them out of their offices.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43And we set up a rota.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54The big problem was where do people stay, how do you live up here? How can we make this work?
0:48:54 > 0:48:56And I was walking down the line one day
0:48:56 > 0:49:00and came past Plas manor.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03And there was this guy outside, so I went to talk to him.
0:49:03 > 0:49:06And he turned out to be a retired colonel from the British army.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08And he said, "Well, you can have my cowshed."
0:49:08 > 0:49:14And he became a strong enthusiastic supporter of the project,
0:49:14 > 0:49:19actually, a vital component because he had an explosives licence.
0:49:19 > 0:49:22And to dig rock you have to blast it.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26EXPLOSION RUMBLES
0:49:31 > 0:49:35We built a siding for him, so that he could keep his locomotive up there.
0:49:35 > 0:49:39And that allowed him to go down to Tan-y-Bwlch where his car was kept
0:49:39 > 0:49:43and move his furniture and whatever, instead of carrying it up the hill.
0:49:49 > 0:49:54Gerald and other deviationists, still old friends, are returning to celebrate a birthday.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58I had a couple of flatmates who went up.
0:49:58 > 0:50:01When they came back, they said, "Oh, it was awful! You had to stay in this hut
0:50:01 > 0:50:04"in the middle of nowhere under the mountains."
0:50:04 > 0:50:08And I thought, "Hut, mountains! Yes, please!
0:50:08 > 0:50:13You know, so I volunteered next to go up and I really loved it. It was like a second home.
0:50:13 > 0:50:19There was Bristol group, and that's the one I came up with, cos I was living in Bristol then.
0:50:19 > 0:50:22- And there was a Northern group. - That's the one I was involved in.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25- BOTH: Two London groups. - London A and London B.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27It was a very mixed bag of people that you had.
0:50:27 > 0:50:31People of different professions and... I was a teacher at the time.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35I was training to be a chef. I was at college.
0:50:35 > 0:50:39We had a mixed male and female workforce.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Probably, over the project, about 30% of the workforce was female.
0:50:42 > 0:50:48And therefore you worked as a group, you ate as a group, you slept as a group.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51And there was, basically, an unwritten rule
0:50:51 > 0:50:54that there was no hanky-panky.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57I'd just finished with a boyfriend. I was at a loose end.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59And my friend Iain, that I was at college with, said,
0:50:59 > 0:51:04"Why don't you and Karen come on the working party on the Deviation?"
0:51:04 > 0:51:06He'd been involved in it for a number of years.
0:51:06 > 0:51:13He was a railway enthusiast. And we said, "Well, we've nothing else to do. We'll go and have a bit of fun."
0:51:13 > 0:51:17And this guy turned up with a car to give us a lift and it was David.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22That¹s David on the left. He was organising volunteer working groups at the time.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25Just as we were leaving to go out to the car,
0:51:25 > 0:51:29my friend Karen said to me, "Oh, I like that guy with the big, fancy brown eyes!"
0:51:29 > 0:51:32I went, "You can keep your eyes off him, cos I'm having him!"
0:51:36 > 0:51:40I just happened to have a camera.
0:51:40 > 0:51:42And this is the only film I've ever made with it!
0:51:42 > 0:51:46I've been an engineer all my life, ever since I was 15.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49My job at the time, as far as the railway was concerned,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52was to organise the northern group.
0:51:54 > 0:51:59We have here pictures of the Barn Site Cutting and the Rhoslyn Bridge.
0:51:59 > 0:52:02These were taken round about 1969.
0:52:04 > 0:52:09The idea of digging out the cutting was to break the rock into manageable pieces
0:52:09 > 0:52:12and load them into skip wagons.
0:52:12 > 0:52:17These were then pushed or gravitated down to the end of the embankment.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19And then tipped over the end.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22Occasionally, the wagon went with it,
0:52:22 > 0:52:24especially if it had been frozen over night.
0:52:29 > 0:52:34The wagon was loaded with probably about a tonne, tonne and a quarter, of broken rock
0:52:34 > 0:52:38and was quite difficult to manhandle.
0:52:39 > 0:52:42- You had to sort of stand on the chassis.- Yes!
0:52:42 > 0:52:45And one of you would release the sort of breaking mechanism.
0:52:45 > 0:52:47And then you'd push it.
0:52:48 > 0:52:54And the risk was, sometimes you felt the thing could over-balance and go down with the rocks.
0:52:54 > 0:52:58My friend Karen and I, we were on the site just the other side trees here.
0:52:58 > 0:53:03And there was about a three-foot diameter tree that needed to come down.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07So the pair of us, between us, got the axe out and started to chop it.
0:53:07 > 0:53:11And the men kept saying, "Would you like a hand with that?" We said, "No! It's our tree.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16"We'll bring it down." And the sense of achievement was absolutely incredible.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25But it wasn't all work.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29I do remember people skinny-dipping in the lake. Do you remember that?
0:53:29 > 0:53:35I can remember it. I never actually did it myself, no, but my husband has done it, evidently, yes.
0:53:38 > 0:53:41But the fun part of the weekend was going home on the Sunday evening.
0:53:41 > 0:53:46Because we used pack this flat wagon with all the rucksacks and boxes.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49Sat on it, all there was between you and eternity was a brake.
0:53:49 > 0:53:55- And you just had to hope that... - And you whistled at all the places it said "whistle"!- That's right!
0:53:55 > 0:53:59And we used to go hurtling down. Really, really fast down the line, in all weathers.
0:53:59 > 0:54:03I can remember one lad sat on a rucksack and he must have over-balanced.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06And he fell down the embankment by Campbell's Platform,
0:54:06 > 0:54:09and we had to slam the brake on quickly to go and retrieve him.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21The volunteers were entitled to their fun.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25They had been working on the Deviation since 1965.
0:54:25 > 0:54:30Now, ten years in, they were about to confront their greatest obstacle,
0:54:30 > 0:54:34a solid wall of granite, they¹d have to tunnel.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39We were faced with this beautiful cutting we're in at the moment,
0:54:39 > 0:54:45and a blank rock face and 271 metres of granite to get through.
0:54:47 > 0:54:50Work on the tunnel started in September 1975,
0:54:50 > 0:54:56and, for the next two years, hundreds of volunteers turned out every weekend.
0:54:56 > 0:55:01Luckily, the project manager, Bob Le Marchant, and his colleagues Pete Hughes and Robin Daniel
0:55:01 > 0:55:05knew what they were doing - they were mining engineers.
0:55:06 > 0:55:10We drill about 40, 45 holes eight-foot long.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13That might take as much as three or four hours.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16Fill the majority of them up with explosives
0:55:16 > 0:55:19and then that's blasted at the end of the day.
0:55:19 > 0:55:25And when you come back next morning, you've got about 50 tonnes of broken rock ahead of you.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29And you've got about maybe four or five or six hours of loading rock
0:55:29 > 0:55:34before you can then start the drilling process all over again.
0:55:34 > 0:55:40And it wasn¹t just the railway that benefited from their presence.
0:55:40 > 0:55:44When the miners came to do the tunnel, Robin walked into my life.
0:55:44 > 0:55:47And I thought, "Ooh, wow!"
0:55:47 > 0:55:51- Big, bearded guy, you know.- Yes, he was.- Lovely sense of humour.
0:55:51 > 0:55:54Erm, and I started falling for him.
0:55:54 > 0:55:58And then, yeah, we gradually got together then.
0:55:58 > 0:56:02But I was volunteering at the time. I used to sharpen up his drill steels.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04LAUGHTER
0:56:15 > 0:56:18Sue¹s drill-sharpening skills were clearly effective.
0:56:18 > 0:56:23Robin and the others completed the tunnel in the summer of 1977.
0:56:26 > 0:56:32Five years later, volunteers drove the first train into Blaenau Ffestiniog
0:56:32 > 0:56:36150 years after the horse-drawn line had opened.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42We met up with the other two guys the other day,
0:56:42 > 0:56:46and we were saying amongst ourselves, of all the exciting things we'd done in life,
0:56:46 > 0:56:51this is the most worthwhile, the most interesting thing that we've done and we're all very proud.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04What they achieved was truly remarkable.
0:57:04 > 0:57:11This disparate band of volunteers in Wales launched a movement that has spread throughout the world.
0:57:15 > 0:57:17TRAIN WHISTLES
0:57:21 > 0:57:25And the story of narrow-gauge preservation isn¹t finished.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29Even today, small railways are opening in different parts of the country
0:57:29 > 0:57:34and on the Talyllyn, the place where in 1951 it all began,
0:57:34 > 0:57:39volunteers are at work still laying new track.
0:57:39 > 0:57:41Back for last bit.
0:57:41 > 0:57:46The narrow-gauge preservation movement just rolls on and on.
0:57:51 > 0:57:56In the next programme, how volunteers took on the challenge
0:57:56 > 0:57:59of restoring Britain¹s standard-gauge railways.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04What you see with the station name board
0:58:04 > 0:58:08is a group of us putting it back in its rightful place.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12That was, if you like, reclaiming the railway for us.
0:58:12 > 0:58:15And how one of Britain¹s most popular films
0:58:15 > 0:58:18changed railway preservation forever.
0:58:20 > 0:58:24This is actually the spot where I stood to flag off the train
0:58:24 > 0:58:27in several sequences in the 1970 film.
0:58:55 > 0:58:57Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd