The Trains That Time Forgot: Britain's Lost Railway Journeys Timeshift

Many television presenters today claim they're going on a journey.

It usually turns out to be metaphorical.

But I really am going on a journey, back to a lost era of rail travel

when trains had character, style and names.

I've got a suitcase, a proper piece of luggage,

to be used in conjunction with a luggage rack.

Some useful books to read.

And a jigsaw, if I can get a table.

Around 350 named trains have come and mostly gone in this country.

My aim is to find out why we once named trains

and why we don't do so any more.

I'm interested in three in particular -

that definitive north-south express, The Flying Scotsman,

the raffish Brighton Belle,

and the hugely romantic Cornish Riviera Express.

All three connected with their passengers

in a way that would be unthinkable today.

I mean, they had fans.

By travelling on the surviving remnants

of those three famous named trains,

we'll learn something about rail travel in the past

and how it compares with that of today.

'It's first-class travel, even in the second-class coaches.'

If you're wondering about the suit, by the way,

and I'm rather wondering about it myself,

it's because my first train will be taking me to the Riviera.

The English Riviera, that is.

WHISTLE TOOTS

My first journey begins among the cheerful bustle of a holiday crowd.

About 500 of these people are here to catch the same named train

that I am, though they might not know it,

because the once famous beacon of glamour has lost some of its cachet.

I'm at Paddington Station to catch the Cornish Riviera Express

to Penzance.

The train dates from 1904,

making it a very early example of a named train.

And it still exists.

But whereas the Edwardian version would have been widely blazoned

in the publicity of the old Great Western Railway,

the modern one is a bit more muted.

But there it is - CR, standing for Cornish Riviera,

and denoting the 10.06 for Penzance.

Today, there is the normal scrimmage around the departure boards,

because no-one here yet knows from which platform the train will leave.

I'm one step ahead, however.

A guide book produced in 1924

for people travelling to the Cornish Riviera begins,

"No need to ask which platform for the Cornish Riviera Express,

"it's Number 1 every time."

Platform 1 was always the pre-eminent platform for this station,

reserved for the important trains.

Today, the three-faceted clock is masked by scaffolding,

the filigreed ironwork skewered with pigeon spikes.

But as I wait, I can imagine what it was like in the glory days.

The tang of coal in the air,

the steam from recently departed trains

billowing lazily under the foot bridge,

the clatter of milk churns at the country end of the platform.

And here, on Platform 1, the Cornish Riviera Express,

a departure on it bringing a tingle

akin to leaving on a long-haul flight today.

Being a small boy, mad about trains and ships and planes,

my ambition was to go all the way to Penzance on the Riviera.

And it finally happened in 1959

when I was aged 12.

I was at boarding school in Norwich at the time,

and we were on our way to scout camp in west Cornwall.

And what I remember distinctly was the station announcer.

Platform 8 will be the Cornish Riviera Express.

Platform 8 for the Cornish Riviera...

Platform 8?! That's a demotion.

Serves me right for having a guidebook that's 90 years old.

Platform 8's on the other side of the station.

I'm carrying my own bag.

In Edwardian times, I would have been assisted

by one of the half million porters who worked on the railways.

And other details have changed...

In the days of steam, the name would have been announced by a roof board

on the top of the carriage.

Here, today, we must make do with a window label.

But there's the name - Cornish Riviera. Well, most of the name.

The word Express is not fashionable these days.

By the way, tip for rich people - yellow means first class.

As a VIP service,

the Riviera would have been seen off every day by the station master.

Today, there is no station master, but a station manager.

And he's too busy, probably monitoring sales environments,

to come and see me off.

Our train is an Intercity 125,

the diesel-powered workhorse of the modern rail network.

There's standard class, but I'm in first.

Well, in its early days, the Riviera was all first class,

and I'm attempting authenticity.

Cornwall then was regarded as a place for wealthy people

who had time to spend

to go and enjoy the landscape,

people who were well educated.

Certainly not, in the early days, the bucket and spade thing.

Despite the up-market character of the train,

it was named in a surprisingly democratic way.

The Cornish Riviera Express was named

by the staging of a competition in the Railway Magazine.

The prize would be three guineas

and the promise that the winners would achieve immortality

as the namers of the train.

I need hardly therefore mention those two immortals,

Mr JR Shelley of Hackney and Mr F Hynam of Hampstead.

The intention was to draw attention to a new express service to Cornwall

whose first leg was a sensational 245-mile nonstop run to Plymouth.

The idea was also to draw attention to Cornwall,

a far-less familiar destination to most Edwardians than Paris.

Some people said the GWR stood for the Great Way Round,

as all their trains to the West Country,

including the early Riviera, used to go via Bristol.

In 1906, the company created a more direct route,

bringing the journey down to about seven hours

as against just over five today.

For some people, of course, the longer the journey, the better.

Well, for me, the thing to do

was just to be looking out of the window the whole time.

First, to get the numbers of all the other trains going by.

It was just going to a different place, different scenery,

so there was always something to look at.

The Great Western Railway produced numerous books

to help the passenger enjoy the experience

of travelling down to Cornwall.

This was one of them - Through The Window.

It's about the scenery.

The book, which dates from 1924, suggested that

on the way out of London, passengers should look out

for such line-side highlights as the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum,

the Maypole margarine factory,

and an interesting double line of telegraph poles near Twyford.

What you got with this Through The Window book

was that it gave all sorts of perspectives

in terms of travelling by train.

The idea was it was very much a part of the entire process.

We're not just looking out of the window,

the idea is you look out of the window with purpose.

To what purpose at this point in the journey, I'm not sure.

We've stopped at Reading, which the old Cornish Riviera Express

wouldn't have touched with a bargepole.

After Reading, standard class is even busier.

I begin to smell frying bacon.

Most of the named trains served food.

In steam days on the Cornish Riviera,

the manager of the restaurant car

would have walked the length of the train

tinkling a little bell somewhere around Exeter

and inviting people to take their places for lunch.

The tradition of on-train dining has been nobly maintained

by the current operator, although it has been modified slightly.

And it has been complicated.

There is the buffet, a trolley,

and it turns out that the first-class carriage I'm sitting in

can become - according to demand - a dining car.

-Sir, would you like tea or coffee?

-Um, coffee, please. Thanks.

-Would you like milk with that?

-Yes.

Thank you very much.

I fancy kedgeree.

Eggs and fish, the principle ingredients,

are staples of train dining, being quick to cook.

But it's brunch, not lunch,

and still less is it luncheon as served on the old Riviera.

In a thriller of 1939 called The Cornish Riviera Mystery,

the two principals are asked by the waiter on reaching the dining car,

"Usual lunch, gentlemen?"

"What is the usual lunch?"

"Tomato soup, sole and fried potatoes, apple tart and cream."

"I think that will do, don't you?"

-Oh, thanks very much.

-All right.

Lunch in the '30s would have cost about four shillings.

For some reason, the GWR boasted

that this was less than half the price of lunch

on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Still too pricey for some, though.

We were a bunch of...schoolboy scouts with our packed lunches

in greaseproof paper, I suppose.

So we certainly didn't have the money to go into the dining car,

but I think some of us would have sneaked up

just to look over the tops of the chairs

to see how the other half lived

and I certainly remember looking into the dining car

and being very impressed.

The tables had tablecloths and nice comfortable seating.

It was all done in style.

But let's not get too romantic about the old days of the dining cars.

OK, there's no monogram on this cutlery any more

saying Great Western Railway,

but that was only ever there to stop you nicking it.

And the great days of the dining cars also coincided with the time

when wages were low on the railways

and all these attendants and waiters milling so helpfully around,

they were earning very little and depended on tips.

When rail wages began to rise in the 1960s, that was the beginning

of the end of the really luxurious era of on-train dining.

Nobody wants to bring back railway serfdom,

but it's a shame that almost all the dining cars in Britain

have disappeared.

True, they didn't make a profit,

but they generated great goodwill.

And they're such a civilised way to pass the time.

The scenery is about to get going.

From the left side of the train, I glimpse -

as travellers for 100 years have glimpsed -

the white horse on the hill at Westbury,

though the town now rather gets in the way.

About 20 miles later, we go through Taunton.

Here, the old train would have slipped a carriage,

that is, a carriage - the end one, obviously -

would have been uncoupled from the moving train.

But in 1960, along came those two gents,

Mr Health and Mr Safety, and slipping stopped.

A brief stop at Exeter, then we're in Devon.

Glorious Devon, as the guidebook has it.

But my fellow passengers are rather taking its glories for granted.

They're engaged in the usual selection of portable pursuits.

I've brought one particularly relevant to this train.

This jigsaw dates from 1929.

It's one of more than 80

produced by the Great Western Railway publicity department.

No other railway made more than three jigsaws.

Its cost would have been two and six,

so that's quite clever - make the public pay for your own propaganda.

The jigsaws typically showed

the territory of the Great Western Railway,

and they had titles like Exeter Cathedral, King Arthur On Dartmoor,

The Vikings Landing At St Ives.

But the jigsaws also promoted the trains and this is one of those.

In fact, this train.

A Cornish Riviera Express barrelling along by the sea.

Three pieces missing.

Well, it was bought cheap on eBay.

The scene on this puzzle is the number one railway view in Britain,

widely reproduced in different ways.

It was famous to children...

..and smokers.

This is a cigarette card.

The location is Dawlish on the Devon coast,

where train and sea meet in thrilling conjunction,

the track being practically on the beach.

For over 100 years, the trains have upstaged the sea

as people watch the trains

snake through the red cliffs of the Dawlish Warren.

The railway author Benedict le Vay describes this

as being like a needle threading through gathered cloth.

With the Devon coast behind us,

we're about halfway through our journey, time-wise.

We have travelled 225 miles from London

and we're just 80 miles away from Penzance.

Some of the best views lie ahead,

and an exciting railway moment.

This is Plymouth.

It's our fourth stop, but on the original Riviera,

it would have been the first stop.

The rail enthusiast, or railwayac in the late 1920s -

they were often vicars - would maybe have walked along to the front

to see a bit of exciting business.

The heavy locomotive, say a King Class,

would have been taken off and a smaller one,

say a Castle Class, was put on,

because the King would have been too heavy

to cross the Tamar Bridge that's coming up.

The King locos weighed in at 89 tonnes.

Whereas the slightly smaller Castle class was 79 tonnes.

Not much lighter,

the first-timer over the bridge might have been thinking.

With ten carriages, that was still over 500 tonnes of train

tiptoeing its way towards the rather delicate Royal Albert Bridge.

You'd finally got to Plymouth, you'd gone past the dockyard,

and then there was this wonderful, iconic bridge

which you could see out of the window of the train.

This was 1959, before the road bridge was built,

so there's just this single bridge, famous bridge, built in 1859,

and the wonderful river.

And at the other side, this fabled land called Cornwall.

The more imaginative sort of Edwardian,

coming to Cornwall for the first time on this train,

might have experienced a twinge of apprehension.

The GWR's guidebooks to the region, after all,

were called Holiday Haunts.

The accent was on "a dash of adventure".

Granite crosses, stone circles, white witches, the evil eye,

smugglers, ghosts.

Through an enticing combination of legend, history and romance,

the GWR was packaging Cornwall

as an upper-middle class holiday destination.

They offered Riviera passengers

intellectual as well as physical pleasures.

Now, out of England, into Cornwall.

You will find exhilaration in the surf that breaks

and drags on the Atlantic shores.

You will find the sun's magic on the sands of the west.

If this were the only magic, if these were the only mysteries,

they would be enough.

But this is only the edge of the land

and this is only the fringe of the mystery.

So the ancient land was sold very heavily

and, being the Great Western, their argument was

that if you want to study our ancient Celtic land,

Cornwall is the best place possible.

There could not have been a Cornish Riviera Express

without the concept of the Cornish Riviera.

This was a GWR invention.

To remind their wealthy passengers of Nice,

they planted palm trees on platforms.

Altering geography to suit their purpose,

the company made out that Cornwall and Italy

were more or less interchangeable,

even down to having the same weather.

One was meant to perceive it as something...effectively

continental.

So you got wonderful expressions

like, "In time to come,

"Mullion will become a Monte Carlo

"and Penzance would be as Naples."

Whatever you can say about Mullion, it'll never be Monte Carlo.

In some ways, Cornwall IS another land.

From Liskeard down,

some of the line is still controlled by semaphore signals

of the kind used when the first Cornish Riviera steamed through.

Operations at Lostwithiel Station might be of interest

to students of Victorian railway history.

BELL CHIMES

For over 100 years, local signalmen have been under instruction

to give the Cornish Riviera Express a clear run.

But it's impossible to be a proper express on the Cornish main line.

Because today, as in the early days of travel,

it's cluttered with country stations.

The old Riviera deigned to stop at some of them.

Our more democratic service stops at even more.

I'm reminded of a quote from Evelyn Waugh

about travelling through France.

"My train was a Rapide, and God, it was slow."

'Ladies and gentlemen, our next station stop,

'in approximately 15 minutes' time, will be Truro.'

It is a very windy line all through Cornwall,

so you've never got the chance to go fast, so you can just sit back

and absorb the scenery, which is constantly changing.

Although the modern train is hours ahead

of where the old one would have been at this point,

this final leg seems to take an age.

We're averaging less than 60mph.

But in the home stretch, the Cornish landscape musters its grand finale

and you wish the train would go slower.

Coming towards Penzance,

the author of Through The Window goes into overdrive.

"While approaching Marazion,

"we have caught a glimpse of that almost incredible sight

"when seen for the first time,

"St Michael's Mount towering up from Mount's Bay.

"We feel the whole journey would have been worthwhile

"if it gave us no more than this."

Just coming into Penzance. It's about ten past three.

The original Cornish Riviera Express would have got in

at about five o'clock, so...not that much of a difference, but then...

we stopped more.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this service terminates here.'

Penzance is journey's end for me, as for travellers of the past.

I imagine them setting off

with the whole of the delightful duchy at their disposal.

Exploring Land's End, painting the continental vistas,

and finding the Atlantic to be so very like the Med

and generally doing what the railway company have suggested they do.

The Cornish Riviera Express did a favour to Cornwall

because it brought people with bulging wallets into the region

at a time when its traditional industries

of mineral mining and china clay mining were going into decline.

For many visitors, the GWR propaganda turned out to be true.

The landscape was stunning and ancient.

Unfamiliar flowers thrived and palm trees flourished.

The visitor to the famous Morrab Gardens might have thought,

on a good day, that the exoticism was genuine,

not something invented in an office at Paddington.

Named trains like the Cornish Riviera were particularly popular

between the '20s and the '40s...

..when the railways were in the hands

of competing private companies.

Their flair and style disguised the bottom line,

which was about making money in a very competitive environment.

My next train was the showpiece of another company,

the London and North Eastern Railway.

And this train's fame eclipsed even that of the Cornish Riviera Express.

The Flying Scotsman, eager to be on her way.

I rendezvous with it at a suitably distinguished point of departure.

I'm at the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh,

known to older guests as the North British

after the railway company that built it.

The same company built that...

..Edinburgh Waverly Station,

which looks rather like a garden centre from up here.

I'm in town to catch the Flying Scotsman,

the pride of the East Coast Mainline,

the flagship of the London and North Eastern Railway.

And look, still here...

..on the timetable today. FS.

Well, you don't need much bigging up

when you're the most famous train in the world.

'The train now ready to depart from Platform 11

'is the 05.14 Flying Scotsman service to London King's Cross.

'Stopping at Newcastle and London King's Cross only.'

The current train is run by the new operators

of the East Coast Mainline - Stagecoach and Virgin.

They've kept the name.

Imagine how much more boring that would look without the words

"Flying Scotsman."

Our train has an actual locomotive on the front, a rarity today.

A loco of this type, Class 91, holds the current British speed record

of 161mph, which makes it a fitting engine to pull this train.

By the way, it is the train I'm talking about.

Not the steam locomotive that was also called the Flying Scotsman.

Sometimes, lightning struck for train spotters

and the Flying Scotsman train

was hauled by the Flying Scotsman locomotive.

But not always.

Apart from a brief interruption a few years back,

the name of this train has survived since 1924.

Traditionally, the Flying Scotsman went both ways,

up and down in railway terms,

leaving King's Cross in London

and Edinburgh Waverly at the civilised time of 10am.

Today, the Scotsman is one-way only, to London.

And it leaves Waverly at the challenging - for some of us -

time of 05.40.

Its early departure time reflects its purpose -

to compete with domestic airlines for the business market.

This echoes the older Flying Scotsman,

many of whose passengers would have been travelling for business.

The suit's not quite right, I know, but I'm trying to imagine myself

as an Edinburgh solicitor on a business trip in about 1930.

The firm's paying and, come to think of it, I'm a senior partner,

so, of course, I'm in first class.

First class would have been businessmen

going down to London or up to Edinburgh.

It would have been quite a splendid journey,

but probably a pause in your working life if you were a businessman

between, say, seeing the bank

and insurance people down in London

and maybe some of the shipping people and going up and seeing

whichever industry you were in, you know - chemical, steel,

shipbuilding - whatever it was that was keeping you in Edinburgh.

The '30s journey would have taken all day,

and that day was to be enjoyed with, perhaps,

a little thinking about business.

Things are quite different now.

The interwar Scotsman would have reached its destination

just nicely in time for the end of the working day, about five o'clock.

This train will get to King's Cross at 09.40,

in time for the beginning of the working day.

The business climate of today is much more frenetic,

and although it's only 05.45am,

most people on this train are already working.

The airline-style at-seat breakfast

promotes a working, rather than a leisure, environment.

And this train is like a plane, really,

in that it will ignore all the stations

between Edinburgh and London except Newcastle.

But back in 1928,

the Scotsman began doing this run from London to Edinburgh nonstop.

A sensational feat for a steam train

and the USP of the Flying Scotsman.

And onboard the early nonstop runs, it boasted services

that would be unimaginable on any British train today.

Services you were offered on the nonstop -

if you're first class, obviously, you got your own dining car,

Louis XVI style, very comfortable seats.

You also had people who came through the train offering newspapers.

If you're a lady, in the ladies' retiring room,

there was a hairdresser.

They offered things like vibro-massage.

For a while, the Flying Scotsman boasted a cinema carriage,

a barber...

..a cocktail bar that served the Flying Scotsman cocktail -

whisky, vermouth, Angostura bitters, sugar and ice.

Apparently it could have felled a horse.

The cocktail persisted, but the barber didn't.

Probably just as well, in view of his cut-throat razor.

Basically, he was a publicity stunt,

and we ought to ask - why was this train trying so hard?

The answer? To stave off the competition.

To detour into a bit of railway history,

in the interwar years, Britain's trains were run

by four private companies -

the Southern, the GWR,

the London Midland and Scottish,

and the London and North Eastern Railway,

owners of the Scotsman.

Of the four, the LNER was the least well-off,

so they had to be particularly canny in the fight for customers.

The Flying Scotsman train arose from competition

between two of the companies of the big four -

the London Midland and Scottish on the West coast route,

and the London and North Eastern Railway

here on the East coast route.

You could get from London to most places in Scotland

by either company, so they were locked in a competition for speed.

We can think of these two routes as like two drag-racing tracks.

The LMS's expresses pounding up the West coast, the LNER's up the East.

And if you had a fast train in those days,

you were jolly well going to give it a name.

As for the theme of those names,

well, it was enough to turn anyone Republican.

The Coronation, the Coronation Scot,

the Royal Scot, the Silver Jubilee.

It was the Flying Scotsman that was the star before that.

This was partly because the LNER was better at self-promotion.

They made sure everyone knew their flagship named train was fast

by staging dramatic events.

For instance, in 1931,

the Scotsman supposedly raced a Dart speed boat

and a de Havilland Puss Moth,

a plane with a top speed of 124mph.

It had all the drama and all the integrity of a Top Gear stunt.

TRAIN WHISTLES

They were just trying to up the ante, take it a little bit further,

so that they got their picture in the London papers.

They were very good at that - making sure that they got the profile

they wanted for their train,

because then some of the glamour spread around the network.

So if you were sat on a train trundling through the potato fields

of Norfolk that wasn't going particularly quickly,

you might think, "Oh, you know, with a couple of connections,

"I could be on the Flying Scotsman."

For most of the year,

the view down this East coast route is in darkness,

since the Scotsman leaves before dawn,

but in summer, it's worth looking up from your laptop.

The highlight is the crossing of the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick.

That was a box that every rail fan wanted to tick.

In about half an hour, we'll be stopping at Newcastle.

In the brilliant and brutal crime film of 1971,

Get Carter, Michael Caine leaves London for Newcastle

probably travelling on the Flying Scotsman.

Well, it would be just like him

to catch a named train rather than an anonymous one.

In the opening credits, we see him in a BR Mark 2

first-class compartment of the kind that I practically grew up in.

Never looked quite as good as Caine, of course.

He's behaving in a very civilised manner, reading Farewell, My Lovely.

We see him going to the dining car, which still existed in 1971.

I think the director, Mike Hodges,

was saying, here is a man who does things correctly.

He eats his soup in the approved manner,

moving the spoon away from himself,

but pretty soon, he'll be throwing people off

the multistorey car park at Gateshead.

PA SYSTEM BEEPS

MAN ON PA: 'Good morning. This is the 7.04 service for London Kings Cross,

'departing from Newcastle...'

At seven o'clock, we pull into Newcastle,

an eerily beautiful station.

We are joined by less bleary travellers,

and the staff gear up to serve a second lot of breakfasts.

Now we are nonstop to London.

PA SYSTEM BEEPS

MAN ON PA: 'Morning. You are onboard the 7.04,

'the East Coast Flying Scotsman service to London, Kings Cross.'

There are many bridges over the Tyne.

They attest to an industrial heritage - ships, coal, steel.

The view from the windows of the Flying Scotsman

would have changed around here

in a way that would have gratified passengers.

They were passing through a literal powerhouse.

Here's a book by an enigmatic chap called SN Pike.

Nobody seems to know what SN stood for.

Mile By Mile On Britain's Railways.

He chronicled the main lines of Britain in the late 1930s.

Of the stretch south from Newcastle for 30 miles or so,

he says of the East Coast's Main Line,

"We are now approaching a highly industrialised part of the country

"and, in the next few miles,

"many single-lined railways will be seen branching away

"to the right and left to serve the collieries, steelworks

"and other heavy industries hereabout."

That would have been part of the glamour of the Flying Scotsman -

the sense of being adjacent to the beating heart of England,

that organ is rather harder to locate these days.

Approaching York, we've come about 200 miles

and we're roughly halfway through our journey.

We're not going to call it York,

just as the interwar non-stopping Scotsman didn't call it York.

This is, in fact, the only modern-day express

on the East Coast Main Line that doesn't call it York.

I'm a bit annoyed about that.

York's important - took up 30 pages of the old Bradshaw timetable,

did York, and I was born there.

Would customers at platform 3 please stand well clear

from the approaching train. There is a nonstop train approaching.

But ignoring my hometown was part of the LNER's grand plan.

The Scotsman's nonstop run was a logistical coup for the company.

It's actually very hard to timetable a genuine express

because, if you think about it,

all the other normal stopping trains get in the way.

In 1928, as part of their PR campaign for the nonstop runs,

the LNER offered all possible assistance

to the makers of a feature film called the Flying Scotsman.

When they saw the result, they wished they hadn't.

It showed much inadvisable passenger behaviour -

far graver matters than feet on seats.

Passengers climbed in and out of the carriages without necessarily

waiting for the train to stop.

The footplate crew were not paying attention.

This was not how the LNER wanted to depict its crack express.

What particularly annoyed Nigel Gresley,

chief mechanical engineer of the LNER, was when the villain

uncoupled the locomotive from the train using only a pen knife.

Gresley insisted on a disclaimer, "For the purposes of the film,

"dramatic licence has been taken

"with the safety features of the Flying Scotsman."

By the time we get south of Peterborough,

our train is racing along at over 100mph.

Sir John Betjeman used to say,

"The train made a different sound on this Fenland,

"because the rails were laid down on beds of reeds."

The modern passengers sees no reed beds.

In recent years, the profitability of rapeseed oil has made Britain

not so much a green and pleasant land as a yellow one.

It's very easy to go to sleep when alongside these vast fields.

On the old Scotsman,

the cause of tiredness would have been drinking

that Flying Scotsman Cocktail before a five-course lunch

accompanied by half a bottle of wine.

On the present day one,

it's rather more to do with having got out of bed at five o'clock.

Bang on time, we reach the outskirts of London

and make our way into King's Cross station.

Only people come into King's Cross today, but until the 1970s,

when the southern power stations went over to oil,

tonnes of coal flowed in by day and by night.

Apparently the station reeked of coal.

In the last 40 years, London has waxed as the North has waned.

That the modern Scotsman terminates at London rather than Edinburgh

perhaps shows the greater magnetic pull of the capital.

There was a better North-South balance in those days.

A Scottish solicitor wouldn't have felt remotely intimidated

about being in the capital.

Also, he'd be dropping the name of the train that brought him here

when he got to his business meetings.

"Came up on the Scotsman. The run was trouble-free."

His enthusiasm for the train would remain unabated.

That for the capital might have been checked, however,

when he was immediately reminded of how crowded the place was.

In 1947, the big four private railway companies of Britain

were nationalised and condensed into one - British Railways.

So began a muddled chapter of named train history.

Naming trains was a way of proclaiming

the end of wartime austerity.

Many new ones were created under British Railways,

like the Elizabethan Express in 1954.

But now came competition from other forms of transport,

and the pressure to accommodate the growing army of commuters.

A less exuberant climate began to prevail.

The luxury and fun of named trains

began to seem antiquated, inegalitarian.

# Choo-choo

# Choo-choo-choo-choo-ah... #

One named train stood out as particularly frivolous -

it's the subject of my third journey.

If ever a name suited a train, it was that of the Brighton Belle,

a mobile equivalent of the charming, slightly rackety town it served.

It's so very British. The hospitality, the tea.

It's just the way that you read about in novels,

in British novels, you know?

It's just so old-timey, that's why I like it.

Unlike the Cornish Riviera Express and the Flying Scotsman,

the Belle is no longer in service,

so this is going to be the hardest journey to replicate.

Fortunately, this train is well chronicled,

because it was used by newsworthy people such as Laurence Olivier.

Can you tell me how you're enjoying your scrambled egg this morning?

I'm enjoying it very much, thank you.

I have come to Victoria station to catch a Brighton train

that coincides with one of the Belle's six

daily departures from London, the 11am.

Our journey, then as now, will take an hour.

I've hired this jacket, by the way.

I think it's right for a train that was rather Bertie Wooster-ish.

Anyone approaching these modern unnamed trains,

and this is actually an Electrostar 377,

is probably thinking about their destination.

But people approaching the Brighton Belle

were thinking about the Brighton Belle.

They would have smelled coffee brewing, perhaps kippers frying.

Being Brighton Belle sort of people, they'd have been wondering

whether it was too early for a drink and rather hoping it wasn't.

They'd have been greeted at every door by a white-jacketed attendant.

He wouldn't have been at all shy about saying,

"Third class that way, sir",

to anyone who didn't quite look first-class material.

Like Brighton, the Belle had a whiff of the louche about it.

Each carriage was named, and the names were of the kind of girl

a chap might want to go to Brighton with.

Brighton has always been racy.

This poster is typical of how the railways advertised the place -

sort of classy sleaze.

Somehow, the Belle summed that up.

The Brighton Belle was launched by the Southern Railway

on the 1st of January 1933 -

the proud flagship of their new electrified system,

at that time, the biggest in the world.

If you go back to where this train came from,

it was from an era post the Wall Street Crash.

We have the chancellor, Winston Churchill,

giving tax incentives to companies

to do major projects that would soak up manpower.

So the Southern Railway decided that they would launch

this amazing electrification programme,

which of course would bring mega benefits

to the whole of the commuting South-East.

The Brighton Belle happened to be the flagship of that programme.

PA SYSTEM BEEPS

'This train is the Southern service to Brighton.

'We are now approaching Clapham Junction.

'Please mind the gap between the platform and the train.'

We're hardly out of London, yet already we have a stop -

Clapham Junction.

The Belle, famously, never stopped.

WHISTLE SOUNDS

In 1952, the BBC chose her nonstop journey

to demonstrate one of the earliest uses of time-lapse on television.

Filmed from the clean and smoke-free driver's cab,

the electrical Belle seems to be whizzing along

at the speed of sound.

Her top speed in reality was 80.

The Belle was a paradoxical train.

It took its place amongst the Southern Railway's

fleet of electric trains.

We can think of these as pretty humble vehicles,

rather like tube trains,

pistons bringing people in and out of London.

But like with most famous trains,

there was no glamorous locomotive on the front of the Brighton Belle.

To the lay observer, it looked just like a line of carriages.

But what carriages they were.

The writer Keith Waterhouse, who lived in Brighton,

said that "The Brighton Belle resembled a string of sausages

"pulled out into the Palace of Versailles."

Everything about it was special.

I think the most magical thing is that there were only 15 carriages,

and each of those carriages was individually designed

by one of the leading design houses of the day.

So we have Heal's doing just one car,

Maples doing one car, Waring & Gillow, one car.

These are just fantastic names.

It meant that when you went on,

it was a different experience in every single car.

Words like Jazz Age and Art Deco describe the interior of the Belle.

The elaborate marquetry featured the sunburst motif

that was coming into fashion for cocktail cabinets and radios.

Then, of course, you get the fabrics, very plush moquettes,

very much up-to-date for the day, Art Deco, beautiful leaf patterns.

Fairly bright colours, so it was an uplifting experience to go down.

You had these little hangers and brackets on the side,

one for your hat, one to hang your coat on.

It was really done up nice.

You stepped on there and you thought you were royalty.

It really was a beautiful thing.

The table lamps on the Belle were celluloid. They were pink.

Somebody once described the Belle on the move

as being a blur of table lamps.

The Belle was making an aesthetic statement.

It was saying, "I am a work of art", whereas today's train is not.

Today's train, you sense, is designed not to offend anyone.

It has the rather washed-out tones of a hospital.

East Croydon, our second stop. It is slightly wearisome.

The Brighton Belle was a commuter train of sorts.

It never left either London or Brighton before 9.30 in the morning.

Last one left Victoria at 11pm.

So it was a train for late risers and late finishers.

The Belle was also known as the Equity Express

because of all the theatricals who used it to get home at night.

Terence Rattigan, Laurence Olivier, Flora Robson, Jimmy Edwards,

Peter Jones and Dora Bryan were all regulars on the train.

The writer and broadcaster Alan Melville lived in Brighton

and often travelled on the Belle. He wrote,

"The most lethal of the Belle's journeys is the 11pm from Victoria.

"You have to be very careful indeed if, after a long day's grind,

"you don't want to be trapped with a lot of gay chat

"about how fabulous the business was tonight

"or how unreceptive the audience was all the way through act one,

"but how they brightened up after the interval."

The Belle was slightly more expensive

than the regular Brighton trains. This was because it was built

and manned by the luxury Pullman Company. They charged a supplement.

You were also under pressure to buy a meal.

They used to do breakfast, like the kippers, and eggs and bacon.

Anything normal you buy, you could get a steak breakfast if you wanted.

The coffee was to die for.

I've never tasted coffee since like that, in big silver jugs.

Oh, it was beautiful.

In place of what was in effect a pretty good restaurant on wheels,

staffed by white-coated attendants, we have today...

a lady with a trolley.

Good afternoon. Any tea or coffee for you, sir?

Hi. Have you got any...champagne?

Champagne. No, we don't sell any champagne.

Would you mind if...? Could you just give me a glass?

-There is your glass.

-Thank you, that's very kind.

I bought this earlier - quarter bottle of champagne.

Well, more or less.

Quarter bottles of champagne, and alcohol in general,

were pioneered by the Pullman company.

They were then introduced on the Brighton Belle.

They would have got through a lot of quarter bottles of champagne

on the Brighton Belle, I imagine.

Yeah, it's warm.

As we approach Brighton, I approach the loo.

I don't like electric doors,

they take all the fun out of going to the toilet.

I have read about the WCs on the Belle.

The walls were coloured eau de Nil with black beading.

Sinks were black porcelain.

There were iridescent glass soap dispensers.

The floor was marbled mosaic, flecked with mother of pearl.

It's not like that any more.

But as with every famous beauty, the Belle's charms began to fade,

or so British Rail concluded.

By the late '60s,

the Belle was starting to resemble a museum on wheels.

So there was some updating.

The carriage exteriors were repainted from umber and cream

into BR's dour new livery of blue and grey.

Blue and dirt, as it was known.

As for the first-class armchairs, out went the '30s autumnal shades.

In came InterCity 70 moquette.

Black.

The part of the train that actually needed their attention,

the underneath, was left alone.

It was just so rough. It was a beast. It really was.

All the underneath was worn - that was when I got it,

it had already done 30 or 40 years.

But when I started driving the thing,

it did used to roll and rock all over the place.

If you went from the main line to the local line

and went over the crossings, you wouldn't dare open

the controller going across, because the back used to roll and tilt.

Yeah, I had complaints about spilt coffee and that.

The regulars were braced for the bumps, but when, in 1970,

British Rail announced they were dropping kippers from the menu,

Baron Olivier of Brighton fought for their reinstatement.

He was magnanimous in victory, gracefully avoiding the K word.

I think since this complaint of mine I'm very happy and I'm very grateful

to British Railways for the way they've taken the matter

with extreme dignity, I think.

I'm very happy that the Brighton Belle

will continue to be one of the fine trains of the world.

It's as important in its way as the Master Cutler in the north,

as the Flying Scotsman, the Orient Express,

they should all keep their faces well lifted, I think.

Thank you very much, Sir Laurence.

It proved a Pyrrhic victory. Soon after,

British Rail announced they were selling off the whole train.

The actor Sir John Clements CBE had a lot to say about that.

Well, of course, for us who use it a great deal, it's a tragedy.

It'll be a very sad loss for all of us, because I suppose it's

the most civilised short journey in England which we're going to lose.

What adds insult to injury is that they're going to replace it

by these ghastly buffet carts, which are absolute hell.

Visiting American billionaire Joseph Wallace King

thought British Rail had just plain got it wrong.

Well, I think it's very quaint.

It's one of the last remaining trains that has

this personality and character. If Great Britain lose it,

they're losing something else very pertinent to a nation.

It's become kind of a landmark.

They sold London Bridge, it's nothing like the Tower Bridge,

but still, it's one landmark gone, and here goes another one.

I think it's kind of sad.

The Brighton Belle's last run was on Sunday 30th April, 1972.

# We'll take a cup of kindness yet... #

Being the Belle, she went out in theatrical style.

As we run into the station,

they got a massive, great brass band and it all started up.

They were playing all this music and everything.

Passengers in period costume,

bands playing - it was more like a festival than the ending of an era.

Then all these people, that really I didn't know,

but obviously people of higher standing than me,

they were all on there and looking through the train.

# For auld lang syne... #

All the Belle regulars

and their luvvie friends turned up to say goodbye -

actress Moira Lister, Dame Flora Robson,

Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant,

the man behind the moustache, Jimmy "Whack-O" Edwards.

Oddly enough, the as yet unknown Bob Marley was onboard somewhere.

All not so much drinking as quaffing champagne

in that way of old-fashioned ravers,

which might explain the amount of wobbling,

as they all got off the train for the final time.

Even today, Brighton seems haunted by the Belle,

so perfect was the match.

It was a good example of why naming trains worked -

the Belle became famous and it promoted its destination.

Thank God no-one closed Brighton because it looked a bit battered.

That's part of its charm.

Along with uninhibited joie de vivre,

quirky nostalgia is what brings the crowds here,

and I think it would still be filling the Belle.

But British Rail did not see it like that.

The future was about one brand, not multiple eccentric brands.

From 1976, a new breed of fast diesels became omnipresent.

The InterCity 125.

This was the only name BR was interested in.

Do you think it's really rather too clinical?

You'd prefer to have the age of elegance back again?

I like the age of elegance, personally.

Would you be prepared to pay for that?

Because British Rail said it cost far too much to keep it going.

Well, I would.

I'd be prepared to, but I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't.

But then, of course, one had the choice.

Now, one doesn't have the choice.

Some of the best-known names did survive, but in a tokenistic way.

Under BR, the rationale behind the naming of trains had died.

I've ridden on the modern equivalents

of three of the most famous named trains.

And it is a bit difficult to avoid concluding that for all

the efficiency of those trains, and they were all on time,

and the undoubted skill and amiability of the staff,

the present falls some way short of the past.

Let's face it, modern railway travel

is rather lacking in style and character.

Can't we have back some of the features

that made the named trains so enjoyable?

Who wouldn't rather have compartments than

close-together airline seating - that is seats with very high backs?

Why must trains try and emulate airlines?

I knew somebody who was on a train to the West Country,

and the guard announced,

"We are now commencing our approach to Bristol Temple Meads."

Who wouldn't rather have dining cars than the at-seat trolley service?

Which is just like being served a meal in a hospital.

Railway style need not be a lost cause.

There is some rekindling of named train romance.

The Brighton Belle is being restored to run on Sundays.

Virgin say the Northbound leg of the Scotsman is to be resumed.

I'm very glad that dining has been brought back

to the Cornish Riviera Express.

I like to think that we can read the names of these historic

titled trains not as we might the inscriptions in a graveyard,

but as a pointer to a railway future that is more confident and more fun.

But then I always was an optimist.

MUSIC: This Train by Bob Marley & The Wailers

# This train is bound to glory

# This train

# This train is bound to glory... #