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00:00And away we go!
00:08We're moving!
00:11They were the machines that made Britain great.
00:14Fast, revolutionary and sometimes downright dangerous.
00:19These are the stories of our engineering masterpieces
00:22that shook the world and drive the way we live today.
00:30Of all the great British machines, one type of machine more than any other,
00:42transformed life in both Britain and across the world.
00:48In 1800, Britain was booming, thanks to the Industrial Revolution.
00:54Towns and cities were expanding, factories were springing up
00:58and the population was growing fast.
01:01But travel had remained unchanged for thousands of years,
01:04by foot, by boat or by horse and carriage.
01:10Then in the space of just 30 years,
01:12a series of brilliant British pioneers started a transport revolution.
01:18They created extraordinary new machines,
01:21built roads made of iron
01:23and changed the world forever.
01:29This is the era in which the train was born.
01:33Iron Bridge Gorge, Shropshire.
01:34At the dawn of the 19th century.
01:35Iron Bridge Gorge, Shropshire.
01:36At the dawn of the 19th century.
01:40This amazing contraption was the world's first railway locomotive.
01:47In 1802, here in Coalbroopdale, powered by spluttering steam and coal,
01:54it hauled itself along iron rails and transformed the world.
02:00In 1802, here in Coalbroopdale, powered by spluttering steam and coal,
02:05it hauled itself along iron rails and transformed the world.
02:18But the story of the railways begins much earlier and it begins underground.
02:24Down here in dark, wet mines.
02:26Mining in Britain was big business.
02:30Whether it was producing lead from this mine in the North Pennines,
02:34tin from Cornwall or coal from countless mines across the country.
02:38And back in about 1600,
02:40British miners reinvented an idea that had been around since Roman times.
02:47They realised that the easiest way to get precious coal or minerals out of mines
02:52was to put a cart on rails.
02:56Originally made of wood, these rail systems were called tramways
02:59and these ones date back to the early part of the 19th century.
03:04Let's give it a try, shall we?
03:13Well, a drop of oil might help, but it's much easier than carrying by hand.
03:18By 1800, most mines had a whole network of tramways.
03:23But, of course, there was another key ingredient for a railway.
03:27The locomotive.
03:29Well, that story also begins down here with the solution to a very different problem.
03:34Water.
03:38Flooding was a big problem for miners.
03:41As miners dug deeper, they inevitably hit water as the water table was reached.
03:46In the tin mines of Cornwall, the seams stretched out below the seabed.
03:51If these deposits were to be mined, the water would have to be pumped.
03:57For years, this was done with water wheels.
04:01But they needed a river to power them.
04:04In the early 18th century, a new-fangled machine started taking their place.
04:08The steam-driven engine.
04:11The earliest, Thomas Newcomen's atmospheric engines, used steam cooled in a cylinder to drive pumping gear.
04:19The first was built in 1712, and by 1800, 2000 were in use across Europe.
04:26They allowed miners to dig deeper than ever before, but there was room for improvement.
04:33I've come to Kewbridge Steam Museum in London to fire up an example of one of the most important British machines of all time.
04:46This type of engine powered Britain for over a hundred years, and provided the starting point for the development of railway locomotives.
04:56And here it is, the James Watt steam engine.
04:59James Watt, an instrument maker from Glasgow, developed his first steam engine in 1763, after repairing a Newcomen pump.
05:11This engine was built in 1820, not to pump out mines, but to pump drinking water to West London.
05:19It's a long way from this to an engine that can sit in a locomotive, but without it, we'd never have got there.
05:25And now we're almost ready to fire her up.
05:30At the moment, it's kind of like a sort of slumbering giant.
05:33Very much so.
05:36That kind of still wants to stay asleep, but we're waking it up into the day.
05:46James Watt's engines were the first to use steam pressure to push a piston.
05:51Inside this 1,088 gallon cylinder, steam pushes down a piston that fits snugly inside.
06:01Up here, a giant pivot uses each downward piston stroke to lift up a rod on the other side, which is connected to the pumping gear.
06:09Once the pump is raised, gravity is allowed to pull it back down, which injects the water inside it into the required pipes below.
06:19And at the same time, raises the steam piston at the far end.
06:23There's a pause as the steam pressure builds up, then the cycle begins again.
06:27And the great thing about this engine is that once it's running, it drives itself.
06:34Well, the engine is now running automatically.
06:37All the driver has to do is start it and stop it and regulate it.
06:41The engine looks after itself.
06:43It's just a joy to watch all the wonderfully crafted valves, rods and levers running almost silently.
06:48It's brilliantly thought out 19th century automation.
06:56But there's one thing you might just have noticed about this engine.
07:00It's huge.
07:02That's because James Watt believed the only way to power his engine was with low pressure steam.
07:08His steam was generated by massive kettle-like boilers such as this one, made of a patchwork of iron riveted together then bricked over.
07:19The boilers provided steam at around two to three pounds per square inch, which is about seven times less than a typical central heating boiler.
07:27With the materials and metal work available at the time, Watt considered the use of high pressure steam to be extremely dangerous.
07:38So instead of increasing steam pressure to produce more power, Watt and his business partner Matthew Bolton built bigger and bigger engines with more low pressure boilers.
07:49And why not? They worked brilliantly.
07:51They were used in mines and factories across the country, filling canals, hammering metal, grinding grain, minting coins and spinning thread.
08:02These great British machines drove the Industrial Revolution and would go on to power the world.
08:10But Watt's dogged insistence on low pressure meant that his engines were far too big and heavy to pull themselves along, never mind power a train.
08:19So instead the breakthrough that would lead to the locomotive came from a far more daring maverick engineer.
08:27A man James Watt despised, but who was affectionately known to his friends as Captain Dick.
08:36Captain Dick was of course Richard Trevithick.
08:40He was a giant of a man, six foot two and known for his extraordinary strength.
08:44A man who achieved the impossible by refusing to listen to reason.
08:50He ignored the advice, the wisdom, even the legal writs from James Watt in pursuit of high pressure steam.
08:58With limited coal reserves in his native Cornwall, Trevithick started out trying to make engines that were more efficient than Watt's.
09:06His first great innovation was to replace Watt's kettle shaped boilers with cylindrical ones.
09:14A shape that spread the steam pressure evenly and so was much stronger.
09:20Of course Trevithick's high pressure engines did infringe a few of Watt's patents.
09:25But did he care?
09:29One bailiff who made it to Cornwall armed with an injunction from Watt was bound with rope and suspended over a mineshaft.
09:38He didn't bother Trevithick again.
09:42Trevithick soon realised that he could make small powerful engines and he knocked together a prototype to demonstrate their wider potential.
09:49The world's first self-propelled passenger vehicle, the Puffing Devil, trundled triumphantly down a Cornish lane in December 1801.
10:00Some say it came to a sticky end, that during some slightly premature celebrations in the local tavern,
10:07the boiler exploded.
10:10Perhaps he shouldn't have had that extra pint.
10:19Richard Trevithick was not a man to be put off by the odd unexpected explosion,
10:24which was good because his second steam-powered road vehicle really paved the way for the first railway locomotive.
10:31In the early 1800s London was the busiest city in Europe, with a population of over a million.
10:37Most travelled around the city by foot, the more wealthy in horse-drawn carriages.
10:43Captain Dick had a bold plan to revolutionise transport in the capital, with his next brilliant invention, a self-propelled bus.
10:53Here is the first ever London bus, the London Steam Carriage.
10:59And like Trevithick himself, it's a bit of a beast.
11:02This lovingly crafted, though bizarre-looking contraption, is a replica of Trevithick's original machine.
11:11Look at these massive eight-foot wheels.
11:14Trevithick believed the roads in London to be in a shocking state.
11:18By using larger wheels, he hoped to provide a comfier ride.
11:21The heart of any machine, of course, is the engine and boiler.
11:27And look at this. Absolutely tiny compared to the Bolton and Watt Leviathans.
11:32That's thanks to high-pressure steam.
11:34And once the pressure's up, we'll take her for a spin around Regent's Park, part of her original route.
11:39In 1802, Trevithick's steam carriage had a series of trials across London, including a run along Oxford Street.
11:48This machine was so outlandish that shops were closed, and the street was cleared of horses and carriages as the crowds came out to watch the spectacle.
11:58And now it's my turn to create a bit of a spectacle.
12:01Please tell me, how do I drive this machine?
12:04The steering is just by tiller here.
12:06Yeah? And what about a brake?
12:08Oh, don't worry about that.
12:10All the things I've driven in my life, this is the one I've secretly got the most fear about, because I just do not know what's going to happen when I get aboard this thing and open up the regulator.
12:22But we're going to find out now.
12:23Right. We have our throttle here. Our tiller here. No mirrors. And we're off.
12:32There you go. That's it.
12:35God save us.
12:38Right.
12:40We're moving. We're going.
12:43Incredible. Just incredible.
12:47This is amazing.
12:50It is unlike anything that I've ever driven.
12:59You know, for 1802, it's just extraordinary.
13:07Trevithick's steam bus could carry up to eight people, and was capable of up to eight miles an hour.
13:14All made possible by his brilliant engine design.
13:17The firebox is built inside the cylindrical boiler.
13:23Two flues run out of the front of the firebox back through the boiler to the chimney.
13:29So he's maximized the hot surface area that's turning water into high pressure steam.
13:34At 30 pounds per square inch, it uses ten times higher pressure than that watt pumping engine.
13:44Trevithick's single cylinder is also built into the boiler.
13:49Keeping it warm makes it more efficient.
13:51And it's double acting.
13:53Valves inject steam into one side of the piston and then the other.
13:56So both strokes are power strokes.
14:00Those power strokes are converted into rotation using a forked piston rod attached to the crankshaft.
14:07And the drive is transmitted through gears to each rear wheel.
14:11All in, the engine weighs just 300 kilograms and produces three horsepower.
14:16That power to weight ratio is the key.
14:20It's a superb, compact and very efficient design.
14:24But what on earth did the public make of it in 1802?
14:30I've got Trevithick expert Phil Hoskins in the back of my bus to tell me more.
14:36This was so unlike anything that people had seen in a world of the horse and carriage.
14:41What did people think? How did they react?
14:43They didn't know what they were looking at.
14:46They saw something arrive in front of them which didn't have horses.
14:50It was spitting fire and it was puffing and chuffing.
14:55Well, they're absolutely amazed.
14:56Unfortunately, Trevithick's success was short-lived.
15:01On one run at the heady speed of six miles an hour, he took out a whole garden fence.
15:07It was carnage.
15:09But the steam carriage was revolutionary.
15:13The ability to power a vehicle with a high-pressure steam engine would soon change the world.
15:19The steam engine on this carriage was the development of every steam engine as we know it today.
15:24Being cylindrical, it can hold high pressure.
15:28When you've got a boiler that will hold high pressure, you can do almost anything.
15:32The world had never seen anything like this before.
15:41A passenger carrying vehicle with no horse in sight.
15:45But Trevithick was ahead of his time.
15:48The London steam carriage was just too outlandish, too strange, too terrifying to be a success.
15:54Fortunately, nothing could stop Trevithick's belief in his inventions.
16:01And he had already set in motion construction of another even more important design.
16:06At Colebrookdale in Shropshire.
16:10Today, a picture postcard scene.
16:15But at the turn of the 19th century, this place was a hive of industry.
16:21Dirty, smelly and noisy.
16:22With coal and iron ore reserves, and good transport links thanks to the River Severn,
16:30this was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution.
16:35Home to the world's first iron bridge.
16:38And...
16:40another first.
16:41You may think you know the first railway locomotive in history, but I bet you're not thinking of this one.
17:00This is a replica of a machine built by Trevithick, or at least to his design, in 1802.
17:05Very little is known about it, but it's thought to be a kind of prototype of his first working load-pulling locomotive.
17:13This crazy collection of cogs and connecting rods is known as the Colebrookdale locomotive.
17:20And although it looks a bit Heath Robinson, the experts here are in no doubt about its importance.
17:26I mean, it's incredibly important.
17:28You think this thing was built, never mind Stevenson's rocket, this was built before Trafalgar.
17:31You know, this is a high-pressure steam engine, you know, this is the thing that put the chuff in the Industrial Revolution.
17:37This thing, this is high-pressure steam at work.
17:40And you start to put it in context of the world events at the time, it's absolutely amazing.
17:44This is like landing on the moon.
17:46I can't wait to have a go on it, with driver Cyril Konyou.
17:50One small step for me, one giant chuff for mankind.
17:54Off we go. Look at that.
17:58Superb.
17:59On the first steam train.
18:02There you go, we're on the first steam train, yes.
18:08In many ways, the design is very similar to the London steam carriage, with a single cylinder set inside a cylindrical boiler that operates at 45 pounds per square inch.
18:18A trombone-style arrangement of piston and connecting rods drives a big flywheel on one side and a gear wheel on the other.
18:28With about seven horsepower, this machine could probably do about five miles an hour.
18:33But there are differences.
18:36Part of the driving experience of this Coldbrookdale locomotive is the fact that you're on a machine that doesn't have any brakes.
18:43And you have to stop it with steam.
18:47Yes. Put it in reverse.
18:49By changing the way the steam enters the cylinder, letting steam into the wrong end, the steam acts as a brake, slowing the piston down and bringing the engine to a stop.
18:59Ah, there we go. So you're letting steam in the other side.
19:10Yes. Yes.
19:12Perfect.
19:13I suppose it's a great city, we've got such a short stretch of track.
19:17We're hoping later to get that bridge down behind us.
19:22Yeah.
19:24And then we can take the track right back.
19:29That's the blast pipe we're hearing now, isn't it?
19:32Oh, hello.
19:34Hold on, Cyril. We're not extending that line just yet.
19:37That's me not taking notice.
19:38Are you all right?
19:39Sorry, it's my fault, Cyril.
19:40That's all right.
19:42As I said, no brakes.
19:43It happens.
19:44It proved the point.
19:45It has, yeah.
19:48Of course, this machine does have one very big, very important difference to the London steam carriage.
19:55It runs on a track.
19:57And there was a very real concern whether rails, with their low friction, would provide enough traction for a steam-powered loco to work.
20:05You need friction for traction.
20:10And on a damp day like today, the four and a half tonne Colbrookdale locomotive barely has enough.
20:16We're actually getting wheel spin.
20:18The solution, as Trevithick must have realised, was that a practical load-pulling loco would need to be both more powerful and a lot heavier, which proved easier said than done.
20:34Two years later, to win a wager between two South Wales ironworks owners, Trevithick unveiled his seven-ton, 17-horsepower Penny Darren, named after the location of the ironworks.
20:48And in February 1804, he successfully hauled 10 tonnes of iron down a nine-mile tramway.
20:56This loco's extra weight gave better traction, but it was so heavy, it soon broke the rails it ran on.
21:03After a short time in service, the locomotive ran off the rails, was hauled back to Penny Darren by horses, and spent the rest of her days working as a stationary engine.
21:16Close, but no cigar.
21:19Which, unfortunately, was becoming a way of life for Trevithick.
21:24As you can see from his inventions, he was a brilliant pioneer, a masterful engineer, but ahead of his time.
21:32Eventually dying in poverty, while others continued the revolution, inspired by his ideas.
21:37Over the next 20 years, engineers across the country, inspired by Trevithick, tried their hand at building steam locomotives for their tramways.
21:51At one colliery, Killingworth in County Durham, the chief engineer built a series of machines that culminated in my next great British locomotive.
22:00Locomotion number one.
22:05The key to the success of this machine was that its designer, George Stevenson, was the man who finally tackled the problem of the rails.
22:18The very earliest tramways were made of wood, but they'd wear out quickly due to the weight of wagons on them.
22:25The Penny Darren ran on iron rails. An improvement, but not perfect. Why? Because the rails were made out of cast iron.
22:40Cast iron was made, as the name suggests, by pouring molten iron into a cast.
22:45But with a high carbon content, the finished product is very brittle.
22:50Which means although it's strong under compression, it's very weak under tension.
22:55Great for bridge supports, but when a cast iron rail has to support a locomotive, this happens.
23:04And that's pretty much what happened to the rails the Penny Darren ran on.
23:08So Stevenson turned to another type of iron, one that was much less brittle thanks to a lower carbon content.
23:17Worked, or wrought iron.
23:20It had been used for centuries, worked by smithies to make everything from horseshoes to nails.
23:27But a new manufacturing process developed in the late 18th century made wrought iron much cheaper.
23:32Stevenson insisted on using wrought iron rails on the project that made him famous, the world's first public railway.
23:42He was hired by a wealthy merchant, Edward Pease, who in 1821 persuaded Parliament to let him construct a 27-mile line linking collieries in the North East and the town of Darlington to the River Tees at Stockton.
23:56The line was originally going to be a horse-drawn tramway, but Stevenson persuaded Pease to let him resurvey the route, operate at least part of it with steam locomotives, and even to carry passengers.
24:13The line took four years to build, with 48-foot-high embankments, stationary engines to help trains up the steeper inclines, and a stone railway bridge spanning the River Skern.
24:24Meanwhile, Stevenson and his son, Robert, set up a new company to build a new locomotive in time for the opening of the line.
24:33The Manchester Guardian made the opening announcement.
24:36A superior locomotive engine, of the most improved construction, will be employed with a train of convenient carriages for the conveyance of proprietors and strangers.
24:47Strangers indeed.
24:48And here is that superior locomotive engine, Locomotion No. 1, George Stevenson's finest locomotive to date, and the first locomotive in the world to operate a passenger service.
25:04On the 25th of September 1825, Stevenson's locomotion was ready for its first big test.
25:15The grand opening of the Stockton to Darlington railway line.
25:22Over 450 people climbed on board, most were carried by coal wagons, but for dignitaries, Stevenson built this.
25:34The world's first passenger carriage, what actually looks like a mobile garden shed.
25:40Stevenson called it the experiment. It seated 18, but with no suspension, it must have been an uncomfortable ride.
25:46Hooked up behind locomotion, they set off at a breathtaking 12 miles an hour.
26:03Over 40,000 19th century train spotters witnessed the world's first passenger steam train leave the station.
26:10But it must have been intimate with 17 other people in there, that's for sure.
26:17The kind of place you want to be alone with the pussycat dolls.
26:23This engine is an extremely innovative evolution of Trevithick's first high-pressure locos.
26:30Instead of one, there are two cylinders, positioned vertically inside the boiler.
26:34Using two cylinders increases the power of the engine, and they're designed to operate out of phase.
26:42One is always half a stroke behind the other.
26:45This prevents the locomotive stopping with both pistons at the top of their stroke,
26:50which would make starting up again very difficult.
26:53It also does away with the need for a flywheel.
26:58The other big step forward is that Trevithick's gear wheels are gone.
27:01This was the first locomotive to use coupling rods to transfer power to the wheels.
27:08All four of them.
27:10What I'm noticing up here is virtually everything is moving.
27:13Yeah.
27:14So it must have been quite a life for the driver, really, making sure that he, you know, didn't...
27:19Exactly, yeah.
27:20You know, get moved by anything, or sort of get hit by anything, really.
27:24Although she took some passengers, locomotion was built primarily to haul coal, and in that she was a success.
27:32She was a loco for hire on a line that anyone could use for a fee, a business model based on the canals.
27:40Mine owners paid by the tonne, and 10,000 tonnes of coal were transported in the first three months alone.
27:45But the line had teething problems. To begin with, it wasn't a dedicated steam line.
27:52So the steam locos were constantly being held up by slower-moving, horse-drawn wagons.
27:57There was no real timetable, and crucially, it was just a single line, with occasional sidings and passing places.
28:05It was chaos.
28:09Locomotion would frequently come face-to-face with other wagons.
28:14With rival companies refusing to back up into sidings, bitter feuds and even fights frequently broke out.
28:21Hey, you! Back up, damn you! I need to be instructed by the knight!
28:26You're right. Keep your hair on.
28:27Thank you!
28:28The railway and Stevenson's locomotion were great engineering triumphs of the day.
28:35But ultimately, the Stockton to Darlington was a glorified tramway.
28:40The first real railway was yet to come.
28:47And that railway would be built between the most industrially advanced city in the world and one of Britain's greatest ports.
28:54Manchester, with its 30,000 steam looms, was the cotton capital of the world.
29:01Liverpool traded raw cotton from America and sent finished fabric around the globe.
29:09This would be the first fully steam-driven line, with double tracks, stations, freight, fast passenger trains and even a timetable.
29:18Not a machine as such, but certainly a great feat of British engineering.
29:22And who else to build it? But George Stevenson.
29:29Transport between the two cities had always been important.
29:33A hundred years earlier, 70 pack horses a day left Liverpool for Manchester.
29:38Once the roads improved, the first stagecoach ran in 1760, and the building of canals saw the city's growth rocket.
29:46But the canals were big business. Canal owners had a monopoly on trade and could almost charge what they wanted.
29:54They weren't going to let the rail line be built without a fight.
29:58Stevenson's original planned route ran through land belonging to three powerful canal owners,
30:03Lord Sefton, Derby and Bradshaw.
30:08They made Stevenson's job of surveying the line impossible, blockading their land and even firing live rounds.
30:18By the time Stevenson's route was presented to Parliament, there was plenty of anti-railway propaganda.
30:24First, they were dangerous. It wasn't unheard of for boilers to explode.
30:30But the railways, they said, would also be the death of stagecoach hands.
30:35Horses would starve, cows would stop grazing, hens stop laying and pregnant women would miscarry.
30:41Getting the bill through was going to be a challenge.
30:46It didn't help that the survey was a bit of a mess.
30:50The height of the route passing over the river Irwell was found to be below the flood level of the river.
30:56Not a good start. The bill was thrown out.
30:59So a new surveyor was hired. One with a bit more political nous, Charles Vignolle.
31:07Vignolle rerouted the railway, bypassing some of the greatest objectors and canal owners and bought off the rest.
31:16In 1826, the bill was passed and Stevenson was rehired to take on the immense engineering challenges of building the line.
31:24Crossing a deep valley required the building of the Nine Arch Sankey Viaduct.
31:31At Olive Mount, people said the deep two-mile cutting looked like it had been dug by giants.
31:37On the approach to Liverpool, a tunnel over a mile long had to be constructed under the city.
31:43The excavation cost many lives. Once finished, it became a tourist attraction before the line went into service.
31:50But Stevenson's greatest challenge was Chat Moss, a wide stretch of bogland on the outskirts of Manchester.
32:00Chat Moss could easily swallow a horse and cart.
32:05Stevenson had to figure out how to build a railway across it.
32:11I wouldn't drive a locomotive across that.
32:14After some failed attempts, he got some help from the locals with some tried and trusted low-tech engineering.
32:21First, he created drainage pipes from old barrels, which he sank either side of the line.
32:27Then he laid woven wooden mats on the marsh, with brushwood and gravel on top.
32:32The weight squeezed water from the moss into the drains.
32:35Eventually, the land was so solid, rails could be laid.
32:41In 1830, the line was finally complete.
32:45Over 30 miles of double track had been laid on stone sets or wooden sleepers.
32:51It was an engineering masterpiece, and of course required the best locomotives in the land.
32:57So engineers the length and breadth of the country had been busy building locos for the most famous locomotive competition of all time.
33:08The legendary Rainhill Trials.
33:11The winner would take a £500 prize and a contract to build locomotives for the new railway line.
33:17There were some bizarre entries. One, the cyclopede, wasn't even a steam engine.
33:25It was a treadmill on wheels powered by a horse.
33:28But there were several serious contenders.
33:33Saint-Pare, a great big boiler on wheels, was built by the locomotive superintendent at the Stockton & Darlington Railway, Timothy Hackworth.
33:42The lightweight novelty, designed for speed, was built by John Braithwaite and John Erickson,
33:49who had been building steam powered fire engines at their works in London.
33:54They were up against a third engine, built in secret at the Stevenson workshop.
34:01George Stevenson was busy engineering the line, so gave his son the task of developing an engine to enter the competition.
34:08Robert built a machine specifically designed to win the Rainhill Trials.
34:14With a radically innovative high-pressure boiler, it was the rocket.
34:22Possibly the most famous steam loco of them all, and what a beauty.
34:29After a year of painstaking engineering work, this replica has just been completed.
34:34Yes!
34:37And today, for the first time, she's going to be put through her paces.
34:45In October 1829, the Rainhill Trials took place on a recently completed one and a half mile stretch of the Manchester-Liverpool line.
34:54And 15,000 people came out to watch.
34:59During the nine days of the trials, each loco was required to pull loaded wagons equivalent to three times its own weight,
35:06on a series of 20 runs, equivalent to travelling from Liverpool to Manchester and back.
35:11The judges would measure average speed and fuel and water consumption.
35:20With some great engineering innovations, Stevenson had made sure the rocket was up to the challenge.
35:25A key design feature was a new boiler capable of producing steam pressure at 50 pounds per square inch.
35:35Inside the boiler, instead of the normal one or two large flues,
35:41Robert Stevenson had fitted 25 copper tubes, connecting the firebox to the chimney at the front,
35:46massively increasing the surface area to heat the water.
35:51He also brought the cylinders outside the boiler and set them at an angle,
35:56simplifying the connections to the drive wheels and creating a smoother ride.
36:01But how would the rocket do against the surprisingly stiff competition?
36:06Novelty was stunningly quick, hitting 20 miles an hour with ease and later managing 30 miles an hour with passengers.
36:12She quickly became the crowd's favourite, but soon things started to go wrong.
36:19But having been built in just seven weeks, she hadn't been thoroughly tested and therefore wasn't race ready.
36:26Early on, the bellows blew. They were repaired, but then on the final day of the trials,
36:32the water feed to the boiler burst, so Novelty never completed the 70 miles.
36:36And to make things worse, each time Novelty broke down, Rocket was sent out to entertain the crowds.
36:44Running back and forth along the track, it hauled passengers or loaded wagons with ease.
36:51The judges were impressed.
36:52Hackworth's Saint-Pareil also had teething troubles.
36:59He'd built the loco in his spare time, outsourcing key components and had finished her just before the trial started, without any proper testing.
37:07Getting Saint-Pareil ready for her first run, Hackworth discovered her boiler was leaking.
37:12That called for serious repairs, but the judges allowed him the time.
37:18Again, Rocket was wheeled out to entertain the crowds.
37:22Once the leak was fixed, Saint-Pareil managed her first official run.
37:27Although her fuel consumption was high, she managed to hit 16 miles an hour with a full load.
37:32She was looking good, but then disaster. She came to a sudden halt in a cloud of steam and smoke.
37:43Her feed pump that pumps water into her boiler had packed in, and a fail-safe device had let water into her flue pipes.
37:51The damage was devastating. She would take days to repair. Her trial was over.
37:56So far, no loco had proved capable of simulating a complete return run on the new line.
38:03On the fourth day of the trials, at her first attempt, Rocket completed the 70 miles pulling a load of 13 tons, three times her own weight.
38:13So, as befitting the first Intercity Express locomotive, we're now going to open her up and see what we can do.
38:2020 miles an hour.
38:27She completed the runs in just over six hours. An average of about 12 miles an hour, but recording a top speed of 24.
38:39Rocket had done everything asked of her.
38:43Just as importantly, the track had survived the ordeal.
38:46Must have been absolutely terrifying to be on an untested, untried experiment, really.
38:55In a final display of showmanship, Stevenson unhitched the wagons and sent Rocket off for a high-speed run,
39:02and achieved 35 miles an hour.
39:05The public and press were ecstatic. For the first time, humans had travelled at a higher sustained speed than was possible on horseback.
39:15The rocket had won and secured its place in history. With a radical new boiler and firebox, and improved pistons and connecting rods.
39:28This was the start of a new generation of steam locomotives.
39:31And riding this wonderful replica today, I can see why this truly great British machine swept aside all the competition. Fabulous.
39:43But there was a tragic twist in the tale.
39:47On the 15th of September 1830, Rocket was one of eight locomotives lined up for the grand opening procession.
39:54The route was packed with spectators to see the first trains run from Liverpool to Manchester.
40:00The guest of honour was the Duke of Wellington, in his own specially constructed luxury carriage.
40:06At 10.40, the Duke's train, the Northumbrian, left Liverpool and 17 miles later, stopped to take on water.
40:17The passengers got out to stretch their legs. And then, there was a cry.
40:22Rocket, pulling another train on the second line, was bearing down on them fast.
40:27Well, at about 15 miles an hour.
40:29Men scrambled back on board.
40:31Then there was a shout.
40:32Huskisson, for God's sake man, get to your place!
40:36But the right honourable member for Liverpool, William Huskisson, wasn't quick enough.
40:45His leg was crushed under the train's wheel.
40:51Huskisson was bundled onto the Northumbrian and rushed to Manchester at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour.
40:58But to no avail. He died that night.
40:59A sad footnote to the great locomotive that won the Rainhill Trials,
41:04and cemented Stevenson's place in history as the father of the railways.
41:12Rocket was a turning point.
41:15Thanks to its winning design, it paved the way for a transport revolution.
41:19It was followed by another great piece of British engineering that finally realised the steam locomotive as a fully matured machine.
41:31The planet, completed in December 1830, this triumph of engineering made the final steps from the rocket prototype to the finished article,
41:47and created a kind of blueprint for every steam locomotive for the next hundred years.
41:51With Robert Stevenson's planet, and the new Liverpool and Manchester line, Britain had a scheduled passenger railway experience that we would recognise today.
42:04Passengers could come here to the Liverpool Road Station, the original terminal of the 1830 railway line, and catch a timetabled service to Liverpool.
42:14First class passengers sat in covered carriages, second class weren't so lucky, with open carriages that took the brunt of the smoke and steam.
42:26A stagecoach delivered passengers to the station where they would purchase their ticket.
42:29Departure was signalled by a bugle.
42:40They hadn't quite worked out how to do railway stations though.
42:43For a start, there was no platform, so the passengers had to climb up into the carriage, like this.
42:49But once on board, passengers could look forward to a journey time of just an hour and a half to cover the 30 miles.
42:55Great exercise though.
43:02Liverpool, here we come.
43:18Oi, how come he gets on the footplate?
43:20Planet went into service within a year of rocket being built, but she feels like an engine from another era.
43:36The biggest difference is that the pistons have moved again.
43:39They now sit horizontally, low down between the wheels under the front of the boiler.
43:45This gives the engine a much smoother ride, increasingly important as faster and faster speeds are achieved.
43:52And the multi-tube boiler of Rocket has been further improved with this dome.
43:58A dome allows steam to be collected high above the water level in the boiler, preventing any water getting into the cylinders.
44:07This engine is another beautiful replica, but it's clear that these and many other small details made the planet a far superior loco.
44:24Very reliable, very smooth, and capable of 40 miles an hour.
44:31I need to knock off the regulator now a little bit.
44:34Well, we're all right till we get to the bridge, right, because you can see our stopping point is the two circles on the gate.
44:41Right, see? If we go any farther, we'll be on the main line, okay? We don't want that, do we? No.
44:46All of a sudden, I feel I'm on a proper steam train.
44:53This is no prototype, no work in progress, but the real deal.
44:58And it's wonderful.
45:08But that main line is approaching fast.
45:11Come the day, where's the brakes?
45:15That's the brake.
45:16Okay.
45:18So if I pull that slightly, yeah?
45:19Very, very slowly.
45:29And then, regulator back open and back we go.
45:32Yes. Quick toot.
45:34Woo!
45:41Wow, how exciting. I'm driving planets.
45:54A great thrill, it really is.
45:56And a lot smoother and a lot quieter and more civilized than, to be honest, I thought it would be.
46:00It would be.
46:10In its first full year, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company carried almost half a million passengers,
46:17with first class paying five shillings, second class three shillings and sixpence,
46:21and a pig, should it wish to travel, one shilling and sixpence.
46:27In 1831, its profits were in excess of 70,000 pounds, the equivalent of 5.4 million today.
46:36Railways were now officially big business.
46:39New lines would quickly follow, in Britain and then the world, carrying hundreds and then thousands of bigger and bigger trains,
46:51at speeds that would one day top 200 miles an hour.
46:58The planet had led the way into the future.
47:01The railway era had begun, and it would make the world a very different place.
47:06The railway era had begun, and it would make the world a very different place.
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