Railway Mania The Past at Work

BBC Four Collections -

archive programmes chosen by experts.

For this Collection, Gary Boyd-Hope

has selected programmes celebrating Britain's steam railway legacy.

More programmes on this theme

and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

The InterCity 125.

Fast and comfortable.

It takes me just a shade over two hours

to come from London to York.

100 years ago, and it would have taken me twice as long.

100 years before that...

I'd have been lucky to do the whole journey in four days.

Speed and comfort.

That's what attracted passengers onto the railways.

But to produce fast and comfortable trains costs money...

and the proliferation of small companies

in the early years of the railways

just didn't have the resources.

The whole process

of building up into big companies began

when George Hudson, known as the Railway King,

began to draw these small companies together into larger

and richer groupings that had money to spend.

CHEERING

So what better place could there be to look at railway development

than here in the Railway King's own capital city of York.

Not that the memories of a long-dead entrepreneur

are the only lure to draw the railway enthusiast to York.

'Today, York station is the starting point

'for a new steam-hauled passenger service.'

This is Clan Line, the pride and joy

of the Merchant Navy Locomotive Preservation Society.

It's half-past six in the morning,

and already the members of the society

have been at work for three-quarters of an hour.

But this train isn't going to be moving out

until 9.55, when it takes coach loads of enthusiasts

to enjoy the nostalgia of a steam trip.

The trouble is, you can't start an engine just by pressing a button.

It's a long, hard job getting steam up.

It's not quite the same as lighting the fire at home.

Getting the heat up for this engine is a very skilled job.

The fireman has to know where to put the coal in this big firebox...

and when to put it there.

There's still a bit to go before he reaches the full working pressure

of 250 pounds per square inch.

You need a lot of fuel to keep the engine running

and the volunteers take on the long job of filling the tender with coal.

STEAM HISSES

Steam up and ready to go.

Rather reluctantly, I have to leave the footplate

as Clan Line begins its journey.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Clan Line was built in 1948, and then completely rebuilt,

with many alterations, in 1959.

After that, it did splendid work as an express passenger locomotive.

It was fast, strong and economical.

But Clan Line came at the very end of the Steam Age.

It was the culmination of more than a century of locomotive development.

That development can be traced at the National Railway Museum,

here in York.

It's part of railway history,

for this was the York North Motor Power Depot.

It still has many of the features of its working days,

including the big turntables,

around which locomotives were grouped for repair.

Now it houses a marvellous array of locos,

dating from 1829 right up to the present.

We'll concentrate on the thoroughbreds of the railway world...

passenger locomotives.

I suppose everybody's got

their favourite locomotive in the collection.

This is mine - the Stirling Single...

so-called because it was designed by Patrick Stirling

and a "single" because it has a single pair of driving wheels.

These are the ones, the only wheels on the locomotive

which are actually powered directly by the engine.

What I like so much about this engine is the sheer beauty of the design.

Patrick Stirling picked up this motif of the great, curving wheel

and used it all the way through the engine.

So you get these lovely, great sweeping curves here.

And it's not just in the main part of the engine.

It's carried on all the way through,

even right down here, under the main frame.

This is not just a lovely engine,

it's historically important as well.

The Stirling Singles took part in the famous Races To The North

of the 1880s and '90s.

There were rival companies, one lot running the route from London

up to Scotland, along the East Coast,

the other along the West.

Stirling Singles carried the Great Northern banner

on the East Coast route.

Engines such as this ran from London up to York

and right back in the 1880s, these grand old engines

were achieving speeds, on average,

of better than 60mph.

Sadly, this was on the losing side.

But we've got one of the winners over here.

In August, 1895,

the London & North Western and Caledonian Railways

finally sewed up the whole race.

And Hardwicke here

actually took part in that record-breaking run.

It had the honour of hauling the train from Crewe up to Carlisle -

a section which included the famous Shap Bank,

and it did it at an average speed of 67mph.

The whole run from London to Aberdeen - that's 540 miles,

was covered in 512 minutes,

and that's a record for steam engines that stands to this very day.

Think about steam locomotives and speed,

and you have to think about this engine, Mallard -

one of the famous class of A4 Pacifics.

This is the engine that still holds the world speed record

at 126mph.

'Our own journey won't be reaching quite that sort of speed.

'But now that the train's made up with its coaches,

'it's heading off to York station to pick up the passengers.'

MUSIC: "Happy Days Are Here Again" by Jack Payne

STEAM HISSES

The engine moves off

to the accompaniment of the unique sounds of steam.

ENGINE CHUFFS

WHISTLE BLOWS

We're going to follow Clan Line on its journey

and look at some of the major engineering features along the way.

The whole trip covers a circular route of 64 miles.

From York, it's a short run to the once-busy railway junction

Church Fenton,

and then on to the industrial centre of Leeds.

We leave the city,

and travel through the beautiful Dales countryside

to the spa town of Harrogate,

then across the River Nidd to Knaresborough....

and then round to complete the circle back to York again.

We pick up Clan Line

steaming towards the first major landmark on the journey.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Church Fenton is perhaps the ideal place at which

to look at what happened with railway amalgamation.

The first station here was built in 1840 by the York & North Midland.

That's it over there, looking rather like an overgrown parsonage.

The early companies liked to build their stations

rather like country houses,

simply because it reassured people who weren't used to

this new-fangled invention, railway travel.

Then, 14 years later,

the company was taken over by the North Eastern Railway.

Because this was a busy junction, where the Leeds line split off

from the Hull line, they thought the whole place would grow in importance,

and they built a whole complex of stations.

And they hoped Church Fenton would grow with the station.

Sadly, it never did.

'Church Fenton never grew,

'but Leeds did, into one of the great commercial and manufacturing centres

'of the woollen industry.

'The line comes in past the tightly packed homes and the mills,

'the whole scene dominated by the tall tower of the Parish Church.'

The route of the railway lay right through Leeds Parish Churchyard.

It was planned to build it on a high embankment,

so the dead had to be moved.

The gravestones were picked up and laid at an angle,

right up here along the embankment.

And here they are, right to this day.

WHISTLE BLOWS

'Not everyone welcomed the arrival of the railways.

'The Leeds & Liverpool Canal Company certainly didn't.

'The train could carry bigger loads and carry them faster

'than the canals could.

'It was the beginning of the great period of decline in canal transport.

'A new age of transport had arrived

'and their age was finished.'

'The train dives down into a deep cutting,

'through the ridge that lies across its path to the north of Leeds.

'But there's a limit to how deep you can make a cutting,

'and eventually the engineers were forced to go underground.'

WHISTLE BLOWS

'This is the southern end of the Bramhope Tunnel.

'one of the major engineering features of the line.

'Two miles and 243 yards long,

'cut though hard, millstone grit.

'The northern end of the tunnel is really rather grand,

'designed like a medieval fortress, with castellations and towers,

'one of which is the tunnel keeper's lonely home.'

It's a bit of a good joke,

finding Bramhope Tunnel here in miniature.

But it wasn't meant for fun.

When the railways were built, there was no modern technology to call on.

Men used the simplest of tools - pickaxes, shovels,

wheelbarrows and a bit of gunpowder.

And tunnelling was worst of all -

dark, dangerous work.

And men died in the tunnel at Bramhope.

And this is their memorial.

And that's why it isn't a joke.

'Once you leave Bramhope, you come out into the Yorkshire Dales.

'The engineers, instead of having to cope with a ridge across the line,

'had the deep valley of Crimple Beck to bridge.

'The train crosses the Crimple Viaduct,

'which makes a splendid addition to the scenery,

'and gives the passengers, in turn, a splendid view of the Dales.'

MUSIC: "Choo Choo" by Jack Payne

There's a last view along the Wharfedale Valley

before the train begins to steam into the spa town of Harrogate.

'The train goes into and out of the short tunnel

'and into Harrogate station.

'Not much of the old station has survived

'a recent major redevelopment.

'It's certainly very different from the station I knew

'when I worked here as a porter, more than 20 years ago.

'Steam-hauled passenger trains were then a commonplace,

'including some of the prestige expresses.

'You could always hope for a fat tip

'from the passengers on the Yorkshire Pullman.

'That was generally considered to be the epitome of railway luxury.

'Comfort's always been considered to be a factor of some importance

'in attracting passengers to the railways.

'But like the locomotives,

'the passenger coach developed over a long period of time.

'So, let's leave our train in Harrogate for a while,

'and travel back to the Railway Museum

'to look at some of the early passenger coaches in the collection.'

Many people would perhaps say that the locomotives,

grouped round the turntable here, represent the really interesting,

and certainly the most romantic part of railway history.

Rolling stock's no more than an incidental. Well, I don't agree.

The rolling stock's grouped around

the second of the two turntables in the museum,

and there are coaches here going right back to the 1830s.

This is the oldest, from the Bodmin & Wadebridge Railway.

It looks a bit like a cattle truck, but it's not,

it's a truck for human beings.

It's a third-class compartment.

The railway company thought it

quite good enough for the poor old peasants.

The first and second class over there,

they had the luxury of a covered carriage,

but truth to tell, it wasn't that much more comfortable.

I'm perched up here on top of

a Stockton & Darlington coach of the 1840s.

By this date, things were getting a bit better,

though it's interesting to see the way the design

follows that of the old-fashioned stagecoach.

If you look at the individual compartments,

you'll see they have the same curving lines

as you'd find in the old coaches.

The luggage was piled up here on top, just as with the coaches.

The guard sat right up here, just where I am.

And when he got a signal from the driver on the whistle

that the train was going to stop,

he had to scramble down in a hurry.

Believe me, it's awkward enough doing it now with the thing standing still.

Heaven knows what it was like when everything was moving.

And once he got down, he...hauled up on the brake

and everything came to a stop.

But this was still a coach for first and second-class passengers only.

The poor old third-class passengers

still had a bit longer to wait for a decent deal.

In the 1870s, Midland Railways decreed that there should be covered

third-class compartments on every train.

And they went even further than that.

They put first-class and third-class compartments in the same carriage.

The other railway companies screamed, "Socially undesirable!"

The Midland Railway replied,

"Maybe, but it's very profitable."

And the others just had to toe the line.

'The Harrogate stop's finished.

'The passengers have had a chance to get down and stretch their legs

'and admire the locomotive.

'But now it's time for the second half of the journey, back to York.'

ENGINE CHUFFS

WHISTLE BLOWS

Perhaps the most spectacular feature of the whole journey

is the crossing of the River Nidd at Knaresborough.

It's an attractive market town, dominated by the castle on the hill.

'On a bright summer's day,

'when the river's busy with pleasure boats,

'it's not hard to see why Knaresborough and its river

'have been such favourites

of manufacturers of postcards and calendars.'

Now that the train's gone by,

let's take a closer look at the viaduct.

It all looks wonderfully safe and secure, doesn't it?

A masterpiece of Victorian civil engineering.

But it wasn't always quite that secure.

On the 11th of March, 1848,

when it was almost completed, the whole thing fell down.

The whole river was filled with rubble,

the water backed up for miles,

houses were flooded, and they were picking up dead fish in the street.

They had to rebuild the whole thing from scratch.

And when they did so, they looked at the castle upon the hill,

and thought, "Let's match it."

So they built a splendid medieval-style viaduct,

and here it is -

a piece of fine, castellated railway architecture.

'At Hammerton, the locomotive slows down to little more

'than a walking pace,

'for the driver to collect a large ring carrying a token.

'The reason is that beyond this point, we're down to single track,

'and so, to make sure there aren't two trains racing towards each other

'down the same set of lines,

'no engine is allowed to enter the section

'without the one-and-only token.

'The single line section ends at Poppleton...

'and now the process has to be reversed.

'A token has to be handed in,

'ready for collection by the next train coming the other way.'

The journey's almost over.

The 500-year-old towers of York Minster

stand high on the horizon,

and the 100-year-old station lies ahead.

WHISTLE BLOWS

'It's been a journey back through a railway past

'which is still a part of the railway present.

'For all those great engineering features -

'tunnels, cuttings, viaducts and stations,

'are still used by the regular services

'that run over these same tracks each and every day.

'And not just in York.

'Our whole modern railway network is built on foundations

'laid by Victorian engineers.

'It's a past which is still very much with us,

'even if our steam locomotive is only in use on the weekend specials.'

After the pleasure and delights of the steam excursion,

the railway enthusiasts tend to gather

for other delights in the railway hotel.

Here we are, and for a building that's just celebrated its centenary,

it still looks a remarkably fine edifice.

The splendid railway hotel

is more than just a place for the weary traveller to lay his head.

It was an advertisement for the railway company, saying,

"I am grand, I am opulent and so is our railway.

"Travel with us."

This used to be the billiard room, down here in the basement.

Victorian gentlemen used to repair here after dinner,

with their brandy and cigars for a quick game of billiards.

Today, it's the mecca of the railway maniacs -

the Railway Mania bar.

A place full of atmosphere,

surrounded by the mementos of the steam age.

All kinds of things, from old LNER posters

to the penny-in-the-slot machine

from the platform Gents.

And here the enthusiasts come after the trip,

to talk over old days and old trains.

Then, at the end of a day,

it's time to sup up the last pint...

and head for home from the station.

The great railway stations seem, more than any other buildings,

to epitomise Victorian self-confidence

and unquestioning belief in the virtue of progress.

But how do you measure progress?

Do you think of it in terms of the creation of wealth -

the glittering chandeliers in the railway hotel?

Or do you think of the memorial to the dead navvies

in Otley Churchyard?

Certainly, the Industrial Revolution did create wealth.

But it also created a great deal of misery.

But it left us something else -

it left some magnificent memorials to man's ingenuity.

And however you think about it, one thing is certain -

it's in that industrial past

that our industrial present was born.