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Michael Portillos 200 Years the Railways S02E01
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00:00Oh yay, oh yay! History is being made!
00:14I'm starting out on a journey into the past,
00:17celebrating the birth of the modern railway.
00:21The whole world story of railways begins with this machine.
00:26I'll trace the tracks,
00:28discover the people who built them,
00:31and pinpoint the moment that we stepped aboard the age of steam.
00:36Feels like we're trying to take off. What a day for it!
00:39I'll explore how railways transformed the way we live.
00:43Here comes the daylight,
00:45and over the bridge,
00:47and glimpse the future of rail,
00:49where new technology will shape the way ahead.
00:58I'm on my way to Bishop Auckland for an event, an extravaganza, a celebration, an outpouring of pride by the north-east of England,
01:19as it marks the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway.
01:25And of course, any self-respecting attendee is travelling there by train.
01:31What we think of today as the modern railway,
01:43commenced with the opening of a 26-mile-long line in County Durham in September 1825.
01:52And this evening, thousands are gathering at the Eleven Arches Outdoor Theatre to witness a spectacular show,
01:58which celebrates 200 years of railway history just a few miles from where it began.
02:19What's brought you here this evening?
02:21We live in Stockton on Tees, and I'm really passionate about trains as well.
02:25I really like the classic trains. I love steam trains.
02:28The smell of the coal. Oh, I love it all.
02:31Hopefully it will inspire kind of the next generation to get involved in engineering,
02:37and look at the creativity that came out of this one little journey.
02:42It got people moving, it got people thinking, it got ideas changing.
02:46I mean, the explosion of invention in the Victorian ages because of this is amazing.
02:51It's sort of one of the biggest moments in industrial history, and it's nice to celebrate 200 years.
03:05Well, a pretty large crowd has gathered, and they're wrapped up warm against the icy wind,
03:11but many of them, I think, glowing with northeastern pride.
03:20We thought it was thunder at first.
03:25Were there such a thing as skyscrapers then, in 1825,
03:30I'd have sworn it as tall.
03:33This iron horse.
03:35The shine monster.
03:37Your promotion number one.
04:05Well, a really stunning show, visually wonderful, technically brilliant, a potted history of
04:23Britain over the last 200 years since the running of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
04:30And for all the technical wizardry, which was superb, I think the start of the show was
04:36the replica of locomotion number one.
05:00In 1825, Britain was top nation.
05:09True, it had lost the American colonies, but it controlled Canada, much of the West Indies
05:15and in effect India.
05:17Britain had triumphed at Trafalgar and Waterloo.
05:21And now the mighty Royal Navy was enforcing a worldwide ban on the slave trade.
05:28An industrial revolution based on British inventiveness had created ingenious steam-powered machines
05:34that mass-produced cotton goods in factories.
05:39That innovation drove the economy forward.
05:42And now a new railway transporting freight and passengers was to be built using a steam engine
05:50that moved itself from one location to another, a locomotive.
05:58To understand why what happened here is hailed as the birth of the modern railway, I meet
06:04Caroline Hardy from the Friends of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
06:09Hello Caroline.
06:10Hello Michael.
06:11It's great to see you.
06:12It's lovely to meet you.
06:14So I've struggled up onto what is evidently a man-made feature and this was part of the
06:20Stockton and Darlington Railway, was it?
06:22It was.
06:23This is part of the Brusselton incline.
06:26The west end of the line was particularly hilly.
06:30And at that early date locomotives weren't really up to coping with hills.
06:35So George Stevenson, who partly designed this railway, had a cunning plan and that was to
06:41build two incline planes over the hills.
06:44And they were powered with a stationary steam engine at the top of each summit and it hauls
06:50the wagons up one side and drops them down the other.
06:53And I'm walking over a series of stones.
06:55Each of which has four holes in it.
06:57That's right.
06:58OK.
06:59Sleepers.
07:00Yes.
07:01These are early railway sleepers.
07:02Just going back to the beginning, what was the purpose of this railway?
07:06This railway was designed at the outset to carry anything for anybody for a fee.
07:11But having said that, like any new business, there's something in particular that's going
07:17to make it economically successful.
07:19And in the case of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, what was going to make it economically
07:23successful was coal.
07:24Yeah.
07:25Now the coal was in South West County Durham, which is over the hills behind us.
07:31But it was very expensive getting the coal out of them because it could only be done by
07:35horse and wagon and they couldn't carry very much at a time so the coal was expensive.
07:41By linking the collieries to a railway, you can get the coal out faster and cheaper and
07:46that should bring down the price of coal.
07:48And what's the idea to bring the coal down to water?
07:51Partly.
07:52The first motivation was actually to get coal to a bigger domestic market.
07:56So they were targeting Darlington, Stockton, Yarm.
08:00But of course Stockton is on the River Tees, therefore you've got access to taking coal
08:05out by river down the North Sea to London, which is the fastest growing city in the world.
08:11There's a huge demand for coal down there.
08:14So of course they build stays along the river and load coal up onto ships.
08:19Who were the people behind the railway?
08:22The people behind the railway initially were merchants and business owners, particularly
08:27from Stockton.
08:28However, over a course of time, the Quakers from Darlington also got involved.
08:33Edward Pease lived in Darlington.
08:35He was a very wealthy man.
08:36He was a wool merchant, but he retired.
08:39And once he retired, he started to get much more involved in the discussions that they'd
08:43all been having and had been unable to progress, which was, is the solution a canal or a railway?
08:50So Edward Pease suggested that they commission an independent report.
08:54And the independent report came up that the railway would be cheaper.
08:59There were earlier railways, of course, for example in South Wales.
09:03But the Stockton and Darlington was the start of something new.
09:07It incorporates lots of elements that had been designed by other people, tried out by other
09:12people, but they all come to the Stockton and Darlington Railway together to create the
09:17beginning of the modern railway network.
09:19That is something that is a permanent piece of transport infrastructure for the public,
09:25available for anybody to use for a fee, that will carry anything.
09:29And that is the start of our modern railway.
09:31Let's chuff on.
09:33True, true.
09:35A mile down the track from the incline is Shilden, the world's first railway town.
09:42On 27 September 1825, the launch day of the Stockton and Darlington, it was the starting
09:49point of this historic journey.
09:52Caroline, we're in Shilden, and here the locomotive took over and passengers had an
09:59opportunity to board the train.
10:01That's right.
10:02On the opening day, 12 wagons which were filled with coal had already been brought over
10:07the inclines, plus another wagon with sacks of flour in it, sending a message out to the
10:12farming community and the people who had water mills that they could also use the railway.
10:16And they arrived at this point and met up with 21 wagons that had been brought from
10:21Darlington, which had been especially adapted for passengers, and a VIP passenger coach called
10:28Experiment that was also here.
10:30Was there a crowd?
10:31Was there excitement?
10:32Massive crowd.
10:33Now an advert had been put in the press a couple of weeks before saying, you know,
10:37if anybody wants to travel on this inaugural journey, please book at our offices.
10:42So 300 people had booked a place.
10:45About 600 people actually got on, sitting on top of the coal, in amongst the sacks of
10:51flowers hanging onto the sides of the wagons, possibly leading to the first incidence of
10:56overcrowding on a train in the world.
10:59Do you know, it's marvellous to read this landscape, this railway landscape with you.
11:04It is brilliant because you can see the line of the railway, even though it's not there
11:09anymore, coming all the way through and heading off towards the rest of Shildon and towards
11:14Darlington and Stockton.
11:16Some parts of the original route are still in use.
11:21A few miles south east of Shildon, at Hyington Station, modern trains run on what is now called
11:27the Bishop Line, and they pass an unassuming building which would evolve into the first
11:33of its kind.
11:36Well, here we are alongside the new Hyington Station, and this is connected to the railway
11:43in some way.
11:44That's right.
11:45This was built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway between 1826 and 1827.
11:50As a station?
11:51No, it wasn't.
11:52The railway station hadn't been invented at such an early date.
11:56But as the railway started operating in the early days, they began to identify a need
12:01for certain things that ultimately stations would provide.
12:05So they built this as a tavern.
12:08But it ends up becoming a bit more than that.
12:11People are commuting from here, and people are using it to deliver and send parcels and
12:17packages as well.
12:18And so what you end up having is evolving almost by accident something that becomes the railway
12:25station.
12:26Was the railway an economic success?
12:29Yes, it was.
12:31After the opening day, the price of shares increased.
12:34And in fact, it had an impact in some other ways, one of which was the price of coal plummeted.
12:40That had an immense impact.
12:42It made it possible for people to invest more in steam-powered factories.
12:49You know, it created a massive boost to investment and ended up triggering the second phase of
12:54the Industrial Revolution.
13:12I joined the Bishop Line for the short trip back to Shilden.
13:33By 1825, static steam engines were commonplace and a moving engine had been hauling at Merthyr
13:41Millville starting in 1804.
13:44But even so, whether the new railway from Shilden through Darlington and on to Stockton
13:50should use such a device, or vehicles hauled by ropes from static engines, or indeed horsepower,
13:58was hotly debated.
14:00That father of the railways, George Stevenson, convinced the line's developers that they should
14:05use a self-moving engine.
14:07And his works at Newcastle built them locomotion.
14:32Although it's been altered over time, that historic steam engine can still be seen at the
14:37Locomotion Museum, built on land close to the site of the works which served the Stockton
14:43and Darlington Railway.
14:45Anthony Cools is senior curator.
14:48Anthony.
14:49Michael.
14:50Good to see you.
14:51Welcome.
14:52It's a very special moment though.
14:53It is, isn't it?
14:54I join you here at the origin of the railways of the world.
14:57So this is where it starts.
14:59This is not, you know, thought to be.
15:01This is the actual location here, Shilden, where Locomotion set off on its initial journey
15:06on September the 27th, 1825.
15:08Remarkable indeed.
15:10And how unfamiliar would this sort of machine have been to people?
15:14They'd seen steam engines for a while, hadn't they?
15:16They might have seen steam engines in collieries and pumping water and hauling the coal out
15:22of the mine.
15:23But to see something, a steam carriage, a horseless carriage on rails, moving along and making
15:28noises and belching smoke and cinders, it would have been like nothing else on earth.
15:33And this comes out of Newcastle?
15:34It does.
15:35So this is built at 4th Street in Newcastle by Robert Stevenson and Company.
15:39Now, a lot of paraphernalia visible here.
15:42Without teaching me the whole thing, broadly, how did that work?
15:45Well, you're looking at a self-propelled kettle in many ways.
15:49Right.
15:50So this cylindrical drum is the steam boiler.
15:52There's a fire going through the middle of it.
15:54It heats water above it and the steam is contained in the top of the boiler and through
16:00a tap, known as a regulator, then provides steam to these two vertical steam cylinders.
16:06And through this very peculiar, they call it parallel motion, it's a bit like a knitting
16:11machine, really.
16:12Yeah, it's a bit of a seesaw thing.
16:14The beam engine on wheels, almost, is what it does.
16:16And through that system of motion connects through these connecting rods to the wheels
16:21and that makes the locomotive go along, very much like the pedal on your bicycle with
16:25a crank.
16:26You move that and that drives the wheels along.
16:29Where was the driver in all of this?
16:30The driver was standing on this running board.
16:34There's no safety guards or anything like that at all.
16:38And he's walking around the engine.
16:40He's able to move around it.
16:42The one sole concession to passenger or driver comfort is this little plank, this bench.
16:50That's where he sat.
16:51So he's sitting there.
16:52And can you imagine, trundling along at eight miles an hour, perched on this spot.
16:58And it strikes me that on the one hand, this looks to modernise very unsophisticated, crude.
17:05Yeah.
17:06On the other hand, it's recognisably the technology of today.
17:10The track, four foot eight and a half inches broad.
17:13Which is, of course.
17:14Maintained to this day.
17:15Yes.
17:16Stevenson's measurement.
17:17Yes, that's it.
17:18The fact that they knew they needed to have more than one train, more than one locomotive.
17:22They had to have passing places.
17:24They had to have some sort of signalling.
17:26These are qualities of a modern railway.
17:29This is exactly it.
17:30And quite often the history books say, you know, the Stockton-Darlington Railway was the
17:34first railway in the world.
17:35It clearly wasn't that.
17:36It was better than first.
17:38It combined all of those different bits together.
17:41First steam locomotive, first public railway, first passenger.
17:44They've all been done by different people, but the Stockton-Darlington Railway puts all
17:48those elements together and creates the DNA for the modern railway network.
17:52You feel like you get vibes.
17:54You do with this.
17:55Of this locomotive, don't you?
17:56Yes, you do.
17:57And it's just so moving to think that the whole world story of railways begins with
18:03this machine.
18:04Absolutely.
18:05Although locomotion number one was designed by George Stevenson, another engineer, an
18:16unsung hero, made it reliable.
18:20Timothy Hackworth was born in Northumberland and began his career designing colliery steam
18:26locomotives.
18:27In 1826, he moved to Shildon to work on the new railway.
18:33Jane Hackworth Young is Timothy's great-great-granddaughter.
18:37Jane, what a privilege to meet you.
18:39Lovely to meet you.
18:42We're standing outside the house of Timothy Hackworth, and he is your illustrious ancestor.
18:48But many people, including I, have not heard of Timothy Hackworth.
18:52How did he get involved in the Stockton and Darlington Railway?
18:56Well, he was the son of a blacksmith in Wylam.
19:01He very much wanted to try steam.
19:04He had heard of locomotives being built on the Tyne and was asked by George Stevenson to
19:12go to the 4th Street Works in Newcastle to help build locomotion.
19:18He was only there for six months.
19:20He then applied for the job of being superintendent, mechanical engineer of Stockton and Darlington Railway.
19:27Do you think he made important changes to locomotion?
19:30He'd actually built into locomotion a number of improvements, really.
19:36He introduced the safety valve, the Hackworth plug wheel, and that was used on many, many locos.
19:43So, actually, locomotion, as we now see her, is very much a Hackworth locomotive.
19:48And he stayed at the S&DR for a while.
19:51He stayed through the S&DR from 1825 to 1840.
19:57But at the same time, in 1833, he set up his own works behind the house.
20:03And it was at this works that the first locomotive for Russia was built,
20:07and the first three for Nova Scotia.
20:10In 1829, Hackworth built a locomotive named Saint-Pare,
20:15which he entered in the Rainhill Trials,
20:18where it competed against the eventual winner, Stevenson's rocket.
20:24Do you feel sad, maybe even indignant,
20:28that people don't remember Timothy Hackworth
20:31in the way they do George and Robert Stevenson?
20:34The family have always been very upset,
20:38because a lot of them were engineers, knew what he'd done.
20:41But everyone learns from other engineers,
20:44and I think all three men played an incredible part.
20:48Timothy, I think, was always a little sorry
20:51that he hadn't built more Locos at the end.
20:57Shilden offers an extraordinary legacy.
21:00So much of railway history began here.
21:07How are you? Thank you.
21:09I'm inspired to follow in the tracks of Locomotion No. 1 on that momentous first day.
21:18When Locomotion first hauled passengers and freight along 21 miles of track,
21:24across spectacular infrastructure on this very line,
21:28people knew that history was being made.
21:31Enormous crowds poured out to see it pass.
21:34Horsemen tried to keep up with it.
21:37At Stockton there was a banquet,
21:40with 23 toasts to celebrate the achievement,
21:44and a 21-gun salute roared out.
21:48But no-one could really appreciate the consequences.
21:53The hundreds of thousands of miles of track
21:57that would be built across the world.
21:59The transformation of economies.
22:02The change in people's possibilities and horizons.
22:06The appalling power of railways in war.
22:10It was the day that the world changed.
22:27Approaching Darlington, my train crosses the Skern Bridge.
22:31The oldest railway bridge in the world, still in continuous use.
22:35It carried the train on launch day,
22:37and is shown here in a picture by John Dobbin,
22:40who attended the event as a child,
22:42and painted this image many years later.
22:45George steps on the train.
22:47Sun pours through the window.
22:50Low September light.
22:53Swallows seen departing.
22:55He finds his usual seat.
22:58Camera in his lap.
23:00Eagerly he checks his phone.
23:03The flying Scotsman's coming.
23:11He gets off at Darlington
23:13and stands beneath the arches.
23:16They were dreamt once upon a time
23:18by the man that he's named after.
23:22The 200th anniversary has stimulated regeneration in the town,
23:27and I'm visiting a new highlight,
23:29the appropriately named Hope Town,
23:31a museum and visitor attraction located in Darlington's historic railway quarter.
23:37Outside the old carriage works,
23:39singer-songwriter Sam Slatcher is performing an impromptu concert.
23:44The Sophie, George, and Aisha, and all who've had their time.
23:50200 years of dreaming along this railway line.
23:56And we dream, dream, dream, dream we dream.
24:10Thank you very much.
24:13Bravo, Sam.
24:14Thank you very much.
24:16The audience absolutely loved it.
24:18And you had them all singing along as well.
24:20And you were singing about dreams,
24:23and you were talking about the 27th of September of 1825,
24:28the Stockton and Darlington railway.
24:30Now, when did you first in your life, do you think, hear about that event?
24:34So I've grown up in a sort of family of railway enthusiasts,
24:38so I think I've always known about the railway,
24:40the love of railway and the heritage of art, you know, of the North East.
24:43And then with my love of music, you know, it soon became clear
24:46that there's a great opportunity to write a piece of work
24:48that would celebrate the heritage of the railways.
24:51How do you think the railways have changed the world?
24:53So it's amazing to think that here in the North East of England,
24:56this idea was planted.
24:58And, you know, here we are today with railway lines all around the world
25:01and the speed in which we travel and the speed of connection
25:04and the way that cities have changed over time.
25:07And I'm envious of your job to be able to go and travel around the railways
25:10and visit all these.
25:11I wish I could sing.
25:15Sam, have you got another one up your sleeve?
25:17I have.
25:18There's a song called Pioneers,
25:19which tells the story of George Stevenson
25:21and walking all the way to Darlington to meet Edward Pease
25:24to convince Edward Pease that this movement of goods
25:28and eventually people should be steam hauled.
25:32And it really began the idea of the railways.
25:35And this story is all about setting the world on track.
25:38Take it away, Sam.
25:49Set the world on track.
25:54Set it all into motion.
25:57Set the towns a-dancing.
26:00Set it all into existence.
26:03And unfold the map
26:06as the candle flickers on.
26:08When the Lions rise and die.
26:09When the Lions rise from 가능한
26:32To the west of Bishop Auckland, the land rises towards the North Pennines.
26:54The River Weir winds sedately through verdant dales and rolling hills.
27:01I'm visiting a railway in the market town of Walsingham and I'm in for a thorough treat.
27:08The Weirdale Railway is a heritage line that follows the course of the river.
27:14It runs for 16 miles and can be joined from the main line at Bishop Auckland.
27:20It runs through countryside which is stunning on a beautiful day like today.
27:26And for me, any ride on a steam engine is excitement.
27:31But even so, today is going to be really special.
27:36So far on my trip, I've seen Locomotion No. 1 as a static object in a museum and on stage.
27:47But this version at Walsingham Station at last adds the motion.
27:53Steve Davis and his team will put it to the test.
27:57Excuse me, gentlemen. Steve, hello.
28:00Michael, nice to see you.
28:01Chris, Richard, good to see you both.
28:03A fabulous replica of Locomotion No. 1, but the replica is in itself historic.
28:09It is, yes. This was built over 50 years ago for the 150th anniversary of the Stockton-Danton Railway.
28:16And here we are 50 years later. And this, although it's a replica, this in its own right is becoming a museum piece.
28:23But has it remained in steam during the half century since?
28:26It has intermittently been used. It's had major modifications since 1975.
28:31So this is not precisely what you would have seen back in the day.
28:35It's a GTX version of Locomotion No. 1 now.
28:39And one of the reasons you've had to upgrade it is you do intend to run it on main lines at some point.
28:44Well, as part of the celebrations, the intention is, with Network Rail's permission,
28:49this will actually recreate the original journey all the way from Shildon to Stockton via Darlington main line station.
28:57That is absolutely fabulous. Well, will it be all right if I jump aboard and take a ride with you?
29:03Yes. Pleasure. Yes.
29:05I'll get myself changed first. Yeah, OK. Right.
29:07Richard, are we properly fired up to go? We are, yeah. We've got a good head of steam up on plenty of water in the boil there.
29:17And the state pasty's in position? It is, definitely, yeah. It's getting nice and warm certainly up later.
29:22There's a handrail next to you there. I will stand safely over here. OK.
29:28And Locomotion No. 1 soars into life.
29:39Oh, yay! Oh, yay! History is being made! History is being made!
29:46What a beautiful day. What a beautiful countryside. What a wonderful locomotive.
30:02I love this up and down motion of the connecting rods. So very distinctive of Locomotion No. 1.
30:10Feels like we're trying to take off.
30:29How's it going, Chris? Nice and smooth. Yeah, it feels nice.
30:32Bastard us for what we want to do.
30:40Chris, we're going to cross the Weir. Yes.
30:46We crossed the river a number of times on this line.
30:49Many, many times.
30:50A lovely crossing of the Weir.
30:55On a cloudless day.
31:00200 years ago, this was a brand new site for the entire world.
31:04What a day for it.
31:05So, yeah.
31:06How's it going?
31:07How's it going?
31:08How's it going?
31:09How's it going?
31:10How's it going?
31:14How's it going?
31:29Two centuries on, the engineering legacy of the Stockton and Darlington Railway
31:34is traceable in this region.
31:52Less than 40% of Britain's railway network is electrified,
31:57and recent electrification schemes have proved troublesome and expensive.
32:02This opens an opportunity for batteries
32:05that can be fitted or retrofitted to trains
32:08that are either diesel or electric,
32:10enabling them to run on sections of the route
32:13that are not electrified without emitting diesel fumes.
32:17These battery-operated trains are a big leap from steam engines,
32:21but once again a new rail technology
32:24is taking shape in England's northeast.
32:32On the Bishop Line, at Newton-Acliffe,
32:38stands a massive rolling stock assembly plant owned by Hitachi Rail.
32:44Opened in 2015, the 43,000-square-metre site employs around 700 people,
32:51and many of Britain's current trains, including the Azuma fleet,
32:55have rolled off its assembly lines.
32:58On the factory floor, I'm meeting Senior Director Nigel King
33:02and Executive Director Koji Agatsuba.
33:06Gentlemen, hello.
33:07Hello, Michael.
33:08Nigel, I know you.
33:09Yes.
33:10Good to see you again.
33:11Koji.
33:12Hello, Michael.
33:13How are you?
33:14Good to see you.
33:15I've come to talk to you, gentlemen, about batteries.
33:18In this case, very enormous batteries.
33:20Koji, explain this to me, please.
33:22So this is battery module.
33:24So this is going inside of this big battery box
33:27that will be fitted onto this train.
33:29How many can you get into one of these boxes?
33:31So 16.
33:3216, and that's what the train needs?
33:34Yes.
33:35How much power does that deliver?
33:37So this provides 700 kilowatt.
33:39At what kind of a speed can it power the train?
33:41This battery actually speed up to 160 km per hour.
33:47Which is a very decent speed.
33:49Yes.
33:50How is there room under the train to do that?
33:53Very easy to swap from engine to battery.
33:57OK.
33:58So this could be a retro thing.
34:00So you could take a diesel like this.
34:01Yeah.
34:02And you would take out, what, a great chunk here.
34:05You take out this whole chunk, would you?
34:07Yes.
34:08You can lower this whole chunk.
34:09Yeah.
34:10You can put this battery box here.
34:12Right.
34:13Very easy to fit seamlessly because of modular design.
34:17And that's what we've done on a trial recently.
34:19And we actually took a train that we built.
34:21We took the diesel engine and the tank down,
34:23and we fitted the battery technology.
34:25How did the test work out from your point of view?
34:27This battery achieved 30% of emission reduction,
34:32and also we achieved zero emission in the city centre.
34:37Can it be a diesel and a battery train simultaneously?
34:40Yes, it can.
34:41It can be like a hybrid car.
34:43So you can have the battery power and the diesel power together.
34:46Just the diesel, just the battery, or just the electric.
34:49So it has many different modes that you can configure it into.
34:52Can you give me specific examples of customers
34:55who are going for this technology?
34:57Yes.
34:58In April 2025, we signed a contract for 45 rail cars,
35:02which is nine five-car trains with Grand Central.
35:05So we're really excited that's going to be built in the North East.
35:08When a train has been finished here,
35:14it runs over a short piece of track onto the public railway
35:18near the station at Hyington.
35:21Yes, modern trains leaving this plant join the national network
35:26along the route of the original Stockton and Darlington Railway.
35:38A new day, and I'm heading north on the East Coast main line,
36:00on one of the Azuma trains assembled at the factory in Newton-Akliff.
36:05At school, I learned about the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
36:10but without realising how important Newcastle is to the story.
36:15On Tyneside, they had mined coal for centuries,
36:19and as demand increased, they hauled it down to the river
36:24on rails using horsepower.
36:27It was at Newcastle that George Stevenson established his manufacturing,
36:32producing first locomotion number one and then rocket.
36:37And the brilliance of the Stevenson family is visible even today on the tide,
36:41with the superb high-level bridge.
36:44It's one of the greatest urban riverscapes in the world.
36:56Change here for trains to Carlisle, Hexham, Sunderland and Tyingway Metro.
37:05This 200th year of the modern passenger railway marks the start of a new era for transport in the North East.
37:17At Newcastle Central Station, with its trio of curved glass and iron arches,
37:22I head for the Tyneside Metro.
37:26It was Britain's first modern light rail network,
37:29and is now undergoing the biggest transformation in its history.
37:34I'm meeting the managing director of Nexus, the Metro's operator, Cathy Massarella.
37:45Cathy, tell me about the origin of the Metro. When does it go back to?
37:49It goes back to the 1970s, actually.
37:52It was the idea of some really visionary people in Tyneside
37:56who could see the benefit of a fully integrated system.
38:00So, it opened in 1980, after six years of construction,
38:05and then it's been slowly added to, slowly developed.
38:08In the early 2000s, we went down to Sunderland,
38:11and we're continuing to look at opportunities to move it forward.
38:18What did you start with? There were some existing railways.
38:21There was. There were some existing district lines,
38:23but it required the majority of the city centre to be fully excavated.
38:28It was one of the great Metro projects of the time, wasn't it,
38:31within all of Europe? It was, it was.
38:34And certainly the first and biggest outside London in the UK, of course.
38:38We're on this platform waiting for something rather special.
38:41We are, indeed. Our brand-new train.
38:44We are replacing our wonderful old girls of the trains
38:48that have been running since 1980.
38:50They were built for 30 years, and they're 45 years old now.
38:54So, they need a rest.
38:56And this train looks completely different, doesn't it,
38:58from the old ones, because it's got the zany yellow line,
39:03which tells you that it's one of the new fleet.
39:05Very beautiful headlights.
39:07It's bright yellow.
39:10Ah. Well done. Super train.
39:22The train setting ends.
39:23Number one is for Sun Shields.
39:26Welcome to our new train, Michael.
39:33So, our first stop is Gateshead,
39:35and that means that we have to cross the river.
39:37We do, indeed.
39:38This is the Queen Elizabeth II bridge.
39:40That's right.
39:41This is the one we built to allow us to get over the river on the metro.
39:46Oh, it gives us great view.
39:48It does. It's a stunning view.
39:49You see all the bridges in the splendor.
39:52The new trains feature sliding steps on every door,
39:57air conditioning, charging points,
40:00real-time passenger information,
40:02as well as CCTV cameras.
40:08Where are the trains made?
40:09The trains are made in Switzerland by Stadler.
40:12However, the parts that the train uses,
40:15many of them are now manufactured in our local area.
40:18For example, these windows are made in concert.
40:21I've been given an invitation to try out the simulator for this new train.
40:26Have you any experience with that yourself?
40:28I have, indeed.
40:29It is the best arcade game you will ever experience, Michael.
40:32The one thing that I can tell you is I have every faith
40:36that you will be infinitely better at it than I was.
40:39I don't think I'll be going for one of our drivers' jobs in the near future.
40:43What happened to you?
40:44My driving style was described as confident yet entirely unsafe.
40:49I don't think I'll even be confident.
41:04At the end of the line in South Shields,
41:07trepidation takes hold as I prepare to face my mission.
41:11At the Nexus Learning Centre, my commander, Michael Darling, is waiting.
41:16Michael, hello.
41:17Hello, Michael. How are you?
41:18To Michael.
41:19It's time to sit up, take the controls and find out whether I've got the Geordie grit to master the metro.
41:27Now, how do we start the whole thing going?
41:29We'll need to turn the key.
41:30So, if you just want to turn it to the one position and it should burst into life,
41:34we'd better start by letting some passengers on, I think.
41:36Because the platform here is on the right.
41:38Correct.
41:39Yep.
41:40And then you can open the doors.
41:41And we should see the passengers getting on and off.
41:44Let's get those doors closed.
41:45Brilliant.
41:46Shut the doors.
41:47If you'd like to put your foot on the pedal, great.
41:50We'll put the train into forward.
41:52Check the signal, which is green, so we are good to go.
41:56Now, remember, every 45 seconds, the train's going to beep at you.
42:00And you're going to lift your foot up and pop it back down on the pedal again
42:03to tell the train that you're still there.
42:05Here comes the daylight.
42:07And over the bridge, do we get a nice view either side?
42:10You get a lovely view, yeah.
42:11We do indeed.
42:13And if you lift your foot up, pop it back down.
42:16Brilliant.
42:17The multi-million pound, fully immersive simulator replicates conditions that Metro drivers face
42:24in the real world, including sudden changes in the Tyneside weather.
42:30So we're coming in slightly.
42:33Oh!
42:34It's very changeable today, isn't it?
42:35Oh, it's starting to snowing.
42:37You need a lot of concentration, don't you?
42:40You do.
42:42Well done.
42:43Very realistic.
42:44It is, yeah.
42:46And it looks like there might be something on the track.
42:48Oh, my goodness, there's a cow.
42:50There is a cow on the track.
42:53Excellent reflexes there.
42:56Got the emergency brakes on nice and quick, which is what we want to see.
42:59Well done.
43:00So hopefully Daisy will be on our way very shortly.
43:03Keith, can you make it a bit autumnal?
43:07Well, this has been a great experience.
43:10I can see this as the most amazingly useful tool.
43:13It's really transformed the way we train our drivers and assess our drivers as well.
43:19Are we talking of assessments?
43:21Don't worry.
43:22You've passed.
43:23Slightly frightened to hear that.
43:25No visit to the great railway city of Newcastle is complete without paying homage to the father and son engineers who shaped the modern railway age.
43:48Down a side street close to the station was the manufacturing where George and Robert Stevenson's pioneering locomotives roared into life.
44:03Beneath the cast iron arches of the high level bridge, which opened in 1849, I rendezvous with Stevenson historian and author Michael Bailey on the quayside.
44:22So, Michael, isn't George Stevenson just the most extraordinary man?
44:35He is the most extraordinary man for so many reasons.
44:39Only the other day I came across a signature by his elder brother, James, and he signed it with a cross.
44:49In other words, he couldn't read nor write.
44:52George Stevenson was brought up in the same household and he taught himself to read and write and to extend that new knowledge to be able to write reports on top of his extraordinary inherent capabilities with steam engines.
45:08He proved himself that he was able to save his employers a large sum of money by getting steam engines to work that hitherto were difficult to work.
45:19And even if you grasp that he's a genius with steam engines, you then have to think about the second aspect to his career designing railway lines, which is a completely different skill.
45:30Absolutely. It's civil engineering rather than mechanical engineering.
45:34Yes.
45:35With the Stockton and Darlington railway, he knew that the railway was going to be built, but it was going to be built as a plateway.
45:43Now, what does that mean?
45:44On the plateway, the flanges on the rails themselves, they were cast with the flange on there, which was okay for very slow movements using horses to haul your wagons along, but it was slow and still quite costly.
45:57He took the initiative to go down and see Edward Pease. He said, this is crazy. Why are you wasting your money on putting in a plateway to take your coal to the coast when you could do so much better using steam locomotives on an edge rail, a rail that we are now familiar with on railways.
46:17Here, the most wonderful view opens up for us of the high level bridge. And this really brings us to George's son, Robert, who designed this bridge.
46:26I think it's fantastic. It's one of the best bridges, if not the best bridge in the country.
46:32Robert Stevenson had a good basic education, which his father made sure he had. He developed his individuality in the three years that he spent down in South America.
46:43He learned how to manage men and how to get the best of them.
46:47All these were qualities that were to serve him well when he became an important civil engineer on his return to Britain.
46:56We were fortunate as a country to have a lot of very distinguished engineers, but what do you think was particular about the Stevensons in their contribution to the modern railway?
47:07I think it's because they were there at the right time and had the right approach.
47:12They demonstrated the ability to be able to undertake major schemes at a cost that was not too demanding.
47:22In the 1820s, when George Stevenson was designing the Stockton and Darlington railway, the North East already had a primitive rail network.
47:37The horses hauled coal to the Tyne in wagons on wooden rails.
47:42One wagon way crossed the Corsi Arch, a remarkable stone bridge over the Corsi Burn.
47:49Opened in 1727, almost a century before the Stockton and Darlington, it's the oldest surviving single arch railway bridge in the world.
48:00Anna Unger is a local tour guide.
48:03Anna, hello, I'm Michael.
48:05Hello, nice to meet you, Michael.
48:07I find you on this beautiful bridge, so you need to tell me, please, some background to this.
48:12Who made this wagon way?
48:14So, the Tanfield Wagon Way was the project of three men, initially, that were known as the Grand Allies.
48:22There were, so to speak, a cartel of coal owners.
48:25When it first opened in 1727, you had 900 wagons a day.
48:31Every 20 seconds you would have had a wagon crossing this bridge.
48:35The object was to get to the water, to the river?
48:37Yes, the object was to get to the Tyne, which is navigable quite far inland,
48:41so the wagons would be loaded onto keel boats, shallow boats,
48:45that would then transport them further downriver to colliers waiting to take the call predominantly to London.
48:52You know, I feel a lot of people's impressions of railways, including mine, are wrong,
48:57because we kind of think of railways beginning in 1825 with Stockton and Darlington,
49:01but here we're talking about a railway at the beginning of the 18th century.
49:05And there is earlier wagon ways here in the northeast,
49:08so if you go down to Wickham and Dunstan, you would have already had a wagon way operating in the 1620s,
49:15so it's something that was here way before the railway arrived in the 19th century as we know it.
49:21MUSIC PLAYS
49:33For a while, my brother and his wife lived very closely here at Tannfield, and I would visit.
49:51And to my shame and my regret, I didn't fully appreciate that I was surrounded by wonderful railway archaeology.
49:59This is the cradle of the railways, the technology that transformed the world.
50:18I've left Newcastle, and I'm heading south on the East Coast Main Line,
50:23a route that was established in the 1840s.
50:32York is famously a railway city, but that's due to George Hudson,
50:38who was a major shareholder in several rail companies.
50:42He persuaded George Stevenson to include it on the route from Newcastle to London.
50:48George Hudson fell from grace when financial irregularities were discovered.
50:53But York has prospered from its superb transport link.
50:58And where there were once vast railway works, today you find the National Railway Museum.
51:05MUSIC PLAYS
51:24The opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 sparked a public fascination with railways,
51:30and the historic milestone was celebrated in 1925 and 1975.
51:37At York's National Railway Museum, home to many titans of the track,
51:42I want to find out how these previous anniversaries were marked.
51:46I'm meeting historian Sophie Vora.
51:49Hello, Michael, absolute pleasure.
51:51It's great to see you, and it looks like we're going to have a film show.
51:54Yes, a very wonderful old piece of film footage from the centenary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1925.
52:03So here you can see the Duke and Duchess of York in the Favadale Wagon Works,
52:08which was a new facility for the London and North Eastern Railway.
52:11So really great opportunity to advertise their spaces and their technologies here.
52:17You can see the Duke and Duchess again here in the grandstand, perfect viewing spot.
52:23And they had engines from all the big four railway companies.
52:27Locomotion number one.
52:29And the absolute star is locomotion number one carrying a passenger train, a replica train.
52:37Now, I think the most beautiful thing about this is that locomotion number one could not actually drive itself at this point.
52:42So there is, in fact, a petrol engine at the back to make sure it could move.
52:48They put oily rags down the chimney and set them on fire to make sure all of that steam was billowing out.
52:55It is an impressive cavalcade. There are so many locomotives from different eras involved.
53:01It was a really great way to show the development of technology.
53:06I'm trying to think what 1925 would have been like.
53:09People still, of course, mourning the losses of the Great War.
53:13The general strike is the following year.
53:15And railway usage is on the way down, isn't it?
53:18You are completely correct. Cars.
53:21As you can see in the background, there is the car club that's even there.
53:25It's showcasing its competitor in the field next door.
53:28What these events really do, and I think what this has done in particular,
53:32has given a sense of hope and fun, and by bringing together all of the railway companies,
53:40it shows a united front for a country that very much has had a difficult time.
53:46By 1975, the 150th anniversary, Britain's railways had been nationalised,
53:52and the last steam train carrying passengers on the main line had run seven years earlier.
53:57Museum assistant director and head curator Andrew McLean attended the 1975 celebrations.
54:03What a beautiful place to meet, eh?
54:05It's magnificent, isn't it? It's superb.
54:07I wanted to talk to you about the 150th anniversary of the Stockton-Darlita Railway,
54:14at which you were present, were you not?
54:16I was. I was five years old.
54:18And why were you there? Why were you at the pageant?
54:21Well, my father actually worked for British Railways.
54:24He was a press officer based here in York,
54:26but he was actually part of the team that helped to organise
54:29the famous Rail 150 cavalcade up at Sheldon in County Durham.
54:32So, because of that, I managed to get tickets for the events.
54:36You must have been fantastically excited as a kid.
54:39It was tremendously exciting.
54:40I mean, I'd never seen a steam locomotive before,
54:42and suddenly I was going to see over 30 of them
54:45trumbling down this very, very famous line.
54:47And in fact, I've got some photographs.
54:49It starts off the cavalcade here with locomotion number one replica.
54:53And as we go through, famous locals like Sir Nigel Gresley,
54:57the famous A4, named after the designer.
55:00The final images show the press here gathered in the carriages
55:04with the long lenses, taking photographs.
55:07And just as I zoom in, you'll just see,
55:09I come into the distance because my dad ran out of film here,
55:12the high-speed diesel train.
55:14So you've had all these steam locomotives,
55:15very symbolic over the age of steam.
55:17And here coming up is to show you that the railways still have a future.
55:21And while we're celebrating 200 years of Stockton and Darlington,
55:24we're celebrating 50 years of the museum.
55:27We are indeed 50 years.
55:29And for me as well, that's a very personal story.
55:31So as well as working at Rail 150,
55:34my father also helped to do the press for the opening of the museum here.
55:37I was also one of the very first visitors to this museum.
55:39I came here on the 28th of September, 1975.
55:42If you were into this as a five-year-old child,
55:44you didn't stand a chance, really, did you?
55:46You were going to be a steam buff all your life.
55:48It was inevitable, a fear, yes.
55:50I mean, from a very, very early age.
55:52I mean, my first outing into the big world as a child
55:57was actually to Waverley Station looking at the trains.
55:59So I was kind of brought up with the railways.
56:02When I was five, I would have been just a few miles
56:05from where you were aged five.
56:07You were in Edinburgh.
56:08I was at Dysart.
56:09My grandfather's garden went down to the edge of the railway
56:12and I'd go down and watch the steam locomotives go past
56:15as they're headed up towards Aberdeen.
56:17Well, it's fantastic to have something like that
56:19at the bottom of the garden.
56:20And if I was inspired to get into railways
56:22because of coming to the National Rail Museum
56:24and seeing this lovely steam cavalcade,
56:26clearly you were inspired by your grandfather's garden.
56:29The elements of a modern railway swirled around in north-east England before 1825.
56:44The demands of coal, wagonways, steam engines, designs for a locomotive.
57:01And they were all brought together by George Stevenson in the Stockton and Darlington.
57:07And in the 200 years since then, the technology has been transformed.
57:15And yet, and yet, every train since, however streamlined, however fast,
57:24now powered by electricity is visibly the descendant of that first one
57:29that left children on the 27th of September 1825.
57:34And the basics are the same.
57:37Metal wheels or metal rails set four foot eight and a half inches apart,
57:43the gauge standardised by George Stevenson.
57:53Next time, I'll explore how railways transform into Britain.
57:58What a beautiful little branch hall.
58:01I'll meet the machine that proved that steam power could go the distance.
58:05We are in the presence of something like the railway Mona Lisa.
58:08And the 200th anniversary celebrations reach fever pitch
58:13at the world's largest ever gathering of historic and modern trains.
58:17There's great excitement. This is not a sight you see every day, to put it mildly.
58:21And the memories from today will last a lifetime.
58:35많이
58:51always
58:54to be
58:58to be
58:59to be
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