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00:00I'm Si King and I've always loved transport, especially bikes and trains.
00:11Here in Britain, we have every reason to be proud.
00:16This is where the railway was born, 200 incredible years ago.
00:22Change the points, 26 plus, it's all happening here.
00:27But for too long, the real stars of that story, our railway stations, have been overlooked.
00:34I'm never going to look at a train station the same way again.
00:37It's where adventures start and end, where lives change and where extraordinary human stories unfold.
00:45The camaraderie you have with the passengers, I love that.
00:49I'm joined by architect Damien Burrows and transport historian Siddy Holloway.
00:56Together, we'll uncover their hidden history.
00:59Oh, wow. This is a sight you don't see very often.
01:03Stunning architecture.
01:05What an explosion of light and engineering.
01:10And meet the people who keep them alive.
01:13Volunteers, families who have worked the rails for generations and their communities.
01:18I haven't been to many train stations where I've ended up harvesting fresh veg.
01:24From glorious coastlines to soaring peaks, it's a journey full of surprises.
01:29You know, that's a pretty majestic view from a railway station.
01:33So join me to celebrate Britain's favourite railway stations.
01:48This week we're seeking out stations that are so much more than places to get on or off a train.
01:56They serve their communities in surprising ways.
02:00It's a bond that runs deep.
02:03What do you think it is that keeps that passion about railway stations so close to people's hearts?
02:10There is a romance about railway stations. This place has it.
02:15In Scotland, I'm at Glasgow Central to find out what this remarkable station means to people.
02:23It's where the Highland folk or Gaelic folk used to meet in the city.
02:28Maybe get a lumber. Do you know what a lumber is? A boyfriend.
02:31Friend. Lumber.
02:34Damien is in the Pennines, celebrating Accrington.
02:39A 21st century station with a difference.
02:42So you've got a building that's carbon neutral effectively.
02:47We're now not producing any more carbon to the environment.
02:53And Sidi is at Yatin in rural Somerset, visiting the original station of the famous strawberry line.
03:01I'm envisaging just strawberries everywhere being picked then by lovely Victorian workers.
03:07These places have welcomed and delighted us for 200 years.
03:13And I can't wait to reach my next destination.
03:19Glasgow Central Station. Lowland, Scotland. City side of the mighty River Clyde.
03:26I'm on my way to Glasgow Central, Scotland's busiest railway station.
03:3317 platforms on two different levels.
03:36It's the gateway to the south for millions of travellers.
03:40But it's also the centre of a vibrant city.
03:44What a welcome. The roof is stunning.
03:55What strikes me when you stand here is the scale.
03:58Look at this architecture. Look at the metal work and the structure and the time and skill that's been employed to create this massive canopy.
04:09Look at the time that they've taken to produce those beautiful architectural fans.
04:16Just details, just to please the eye of passengers and travellers that come through this magnificent station.
04:23They're clever, them Victorian folk, you know.
04:28In the main concourse, there's not a supporting column in sight.
04:32It's like there's nothing holding it up.
04:34It's uplifting.
04:38On the day that Central Station opened its doors in August 1879, anyone looking up would have felt exactly the same.
04:48As soon as you walk into it, it's a statement of like, we're here, we're affluent, there's a boom going on on the Clyde with shipbuilding and heavy industry.
04:59And this is our jewel in the crown. This is what brings people into the beating heart of what is Glasgow's vibrant city. Absolutely fabulous.
05:10Almost 150 years on, I'm here to be welcomed by the station's busiest man.
05:16Drew.
05:18Hi, I'm Si. Nice to meet you.
05:21Si, nice to meet you.
05:22How's things, all right?
05:23I'm brand new, thank you.
05:24You know, I've passed through Glasgow Central on numerous occasions, but it's not until you actually stop and look at what you have here.
05:33What a beautiful building we've got.
05:35Oh, it's remarkable, Drew. It really is.
05:37You know, nothing's really changed. It's kept a Victorian look.
05:41Very much so.
05:42And people come into Glasgow, they just take one look at a station, look up and they go, wow.
05:48The wow factor was created by one of Glasgow's most prolific architects.
05:53James Miller designed an extension that moved platforms and trains away from the central space.
06:04His masterstroke was the Champagne Dome, a gateway to the upmarket railway hotel right outside.
06:12It's an internal building without corners to bring flow, a trick he learned as an interior designer on one of the great ocean liners.
06:23When you walk into the station, there's a sense of, I always love it, because you get a sense of the character and personality of the city of which it serves.
06:34Yeah, Glasgow Central is a town within a city, because we've got 95,000 passengers a day coming through Glasgow City.
06:4195,000 a day?
06:4295,000 a day.
06:43What is it that makes, that makes the station, really, what is it?
06:48It's the people that work in the station.
06:50It's the everyday coming into Glasgow Central, knowing that you're coming into an iconic building in the centre of Glasgow.
06:56Sure.
06:57And the people you meet within the station, you know, whether it be your staff, the passengers that come through, and the camaraderie you have with the passengers.
07:07I love that.
07:08Yeah.
07:09That's how I like to go out and play my part.
07:11Yeah, and just have a crack with people in it.
07:13Yes.
07:14I mean, because it's the human condition, that's what we want.
07:16Absolutely.
07:18We are classed as what they call a safe location, because whatever harm is round about the streets, they'll come in to Glasgow, because we'll look after them.
07:29We'll look after any first aid or something.
07:31The B-Brice Transport Police are there.
07:33That's interesting.
07:34So there is a sense of sanctuary of the station, because it's way more than just a station, isn't it?
07:40Oh, aye, definitely.
07:41You must be very proud of your job.
07:42Very, very proud.
07:43If you have been in that place for over 30 years, you must like your job, and I love my job.
07:49As a building, I'd really love to get a sense of scale, so Drew is taking me on to the roof.
07:56It's remarkable, isn't it?
07:58You come up here, and it's a peace and quiet.
08:00It is.
08:01You do.
08:02Looking on it, that's a great view.
08:03Yeah, there is that definite sense of serenity, isn't there?
08:07It's lovely.
08:08Good grief.
08:09What you get here is that sense of architecture, and you can see the development of the city from up here.
08:16Definitely.
08:17This is the Grand Central Hotel.
08:19It looks onto the main roof of the station.
08:20Onto the main roof of the station.
08:21But you might look at the size of this massive roof.
08:24You're talking about 48,000 panes of glass.
08:2748,000 panes of glass.
08:2848,000 panes of glass.
08:2948,000 panes of glass.
08:3048,000 panes of glass.
08:31That's a lot of sand, isn't it?
08:32Yes, yes.
08:33Each of these panes have been replaced.
08:36Steam trains were big, loud, and dirty.
08:39So the original glass was black from baked on tar and soot.
08:46Well, what a privilege.
08:48Thanks for bringing us up here.
08:49Pleasant.
08:50It's a pleasure.
08:51Anytime.
08:52Thank you, mate.
08:54It's a pleasure.
08:55From the early days of steam, railways and their stations have transformed this land in different
09:14ways.
09:16Great Malvern station in the West Midlands and close to the Welsh borders was always more
09:22than just a stop on the line.
09:24It was decorated in this beautiful, over-the-top way to attract the wealthy Victorian elite.
09:33The story of this station starts with a Scot, a bald and entrepreneurial heiress, Lady Emily Foley.
09:42An aristocrat of great interest to Michael, chairman of the Friends of Great Malvern.
09:49Lady Emily was the daughter of a Scottish aristocrat.
09:54So she was wealthy, aristocratic, and very quickly widowed.
09:59That meant she had control over her own money, which in Victorian times women didn't.
10:04All this land belonged to her.
10:06Her main social life was in London.
10:08She liked the station because she could then get to London quickly.
10:14But she also had the foresight to know that this station could bring money into the town.
10:19Lady Emily owned the land on which the platform was built.
10:23And with architect Edmund Wallace Emsley created this jubilant design.
10:32The land next to the station was also part of her estate.
10:35And she permitted Dr James Gulley to attract high paying clientele with a neo-Gothic hotel.
10:43There they could take freezing cold baths with Malvern spring water.
10:48The famous water cures.
10:51The spas were very popular, the water cures and spas.
10:54So they poured cold water over themselves and wrapped themselves in cold towels.
11:00So they had a really unpleasant experience.
11:04But they felt better afterwards.
11:05Many famous folk from Darwin to Dickens visited Great Malvern.
11:11And its Victorian fame as a spa town still brings visitors today.
11:16And waters are still drunk from its springs.
11:20With its elegant canopies and unusual craftsmanship,
11:24it's still the start of a timeless adventure.
11:28I don't know any other station that has this kind of decoration.
11:30I think the hotel wanted a really ornate station to attract their wealthy customers.
11:37And they had the money to do it.
11:39This station is now in the hands of a 21st century lady.
11:44Lisa, the present day customer service assistant.
11:48It was a busy station.
11:49There used to be parcels here as well.
11:51And there would have been 20, 30 staff here.
11:55We do get a lot of people who just want to come to look at the station.
11:58It's beautiful at the moment, so lots of people are always taking photos.
12:03The passengers travelling here per year is about 45,000 at the moment.
12:08But it's going up and getting busier all the time.
12:12It looks like recent renovations are working their magic.
12:16I think Lady Emily would approve.
12:18I'm fascinated by the history of these stations.
12:28All the people who have come and gone, but also live on inside them.
12:32I'm going to find out about the Highlanders driven from their lands who found sanctuary here in Glasgow Central Station almost 150 years ago.
12:44Our train stations are so much more than places to arrive or leave.
12:57These grand old walls with glass ceilings express the optimism of the age.
13:03And you can still feel it today.
13:10While I'm in Scotland enjoying Glasgow Central Station's energy,
13:15CIDI is somewhere much more peaceful in Somerset.
13:19Amongst the rolling pastures of Somerset, where steam one signalled change and the whistle echoed across cider orchards, is Yatton Station.
13:32You can find it in the north of the county, between the Bristol Channel and the Mendip Hills.
13:40For anyone travelling on the Bristol to Exeter line, Yatton may just seem like a regular commuter stop.
13:47But when you get off the train here, you discover it so much more than that.
13:51Yatton is a precious example of a tiny Victorian station still in operation today, also known as the Gateway to the Strawberry Line.
14:06Richard, a local railway enthusiast, is going to tell me all about it.
14:11This so-called Strawberry Line is how Yatton Station changed history.
14:16It runs right past the station.
14:19Richard, can you tell us where we are now?
14:23Our feet are passing over a disused railway line.
14:26This is the track bed of the Cheddar Valley Line, which ran from Yatton through Cheddar and Shepton Mallard to Whittam Junction.
14:35Right. So this used to have steam locomotors tracking down there.
14:40What was the main purpose of it?
14:42In 1817, it was a passenger service, but it also had a strawberry special service.
14:46So it used to run strawberry cargo from the Mender Hills around Cheddar to markets in London and Birmingham and all over the UK, in fact.
14:58That would have been so revolutionary, wouldn't it? Because of course, strawberries have got a limited shelf life.
15:04That's right. And strawberries here were meant to be of a particularly high quality, a little bit like wine.
15:08South facing slopes, perfect climate, lots of rain, lots of sun.
15:15Fresh strawberries from Somerset were loved everywhere, appealing especially to the appetites of London society.
15:21Yatton Station made sure that Covent Garden's busy stalls sold them by the sack full.
15:32I'm envisaging just strawberries everywhere being picked then by lovely Victorian workers. What was it like?
15:40Well, I actually asked an old boy who lived right by the old fields and he said until the 50s, it was literally strawberries as far as you could see.
15:50Yeah, and I imagine it would have smelled amazing as well, the fragrance coming off the plants.
15:55So it's quite a picture. It's very romantic in every way.
15:59It really is.
16:03The precious cargo would have been loaded at Yatton Station along with all the people who could now travel across the country at unprecedented speed.
16:12So this opens in the 19th century. I mean, how does it revolutionize this community in this area?
16:22It would open up the railway services to small villages. This was a service that stopped at every little community.
16:29And so it was hugely important for people who up until that point would get around, well basically either on foot or horse and cart,
16:35to get on a railway and go to neighbouring villages and nearby towns, so it made people much more mobile.
16:44This line closed in the 1960s with countless others, but its legacy is a cycleway connecting all the towns and villages that the train once did.
16:57People come here to ride through what is now a nature reserve, beginning and ending with Yatton Station.
17:03Now, looking around you can tell that the station's clearly been so well looked after, and it's become a bit of a community hub,
17:15and especially this cafe I'm about to go to.
17:20It's no ordinary place. It offers training for individuals with additional needs, helping them to find their feet in work.
17:27You can find it in the original building on platform one, carefully restored to house the cafe.
17:37Hello. Hello. What's your name?
17:40Lucy May Paul. Nice to meet you. Have you been working here for a while?
17:44I've been working here since 14 years ago when it first opened up.
17:4814 years? Yes.
17:49So does this feel like a bit of a home away from home?
17:54Yeah. My second home cafe.
17:57What's your favourite thing about it?
17:59Making a cake. You can see the beautiful cakes on the side here.
18:03Lucy's cakes are most popular, with a growing tribe of locals and visitors from further afield.
18:08Well, I would love to order one, so I'll have a lemon and blueberry cake, and I'll have a coffee.
18:17Okay. I will be.
18:18Thank you so. It's so nice to meet you, Lucy.
18:20You too.
18:21All right. Take care.
18:22Bye.
18:24The cafe here is run by Virginia, who's about to join me for a coffee and cake.
18:30Oh, thank you so much.
18:31Here we are.
18:33Oh, let's tuck in.
18:34Oh, this looks so good.
18:35So, will you tell me a little bit about the history of the Strawberry Line Cafe?
18:40A group of parents locally wanted to create a community project that would also help people with additional needs into work.
18:50And we ended up with the cafe.
18:53We've tried to keep it with a station theme.
18:55Yep.
18:56We do art clubs in the evenings.
18:58There's just always something going on here.
19:00I think it's so amazing to see your staff and how much they seem to love their job.
19:04Yeah.
19:05They do everything.
19:06Originally, the cafe was to build people up in confidence and then they could move on to other jobs.
19:13But they all love it and they can't go.
19:15It just makes it so much better than your quick grab-and-go coffee shops.
19:20Yeah.
19:21As much as we've outgrown it, we would never want to go anywhere else.
19:23Mmm.
19:24This is where we belong.
19:25Well, I've got to say, what you've created here is just extraordinary because the cake's wonderful, the coffee's delicious.
19:32Locally roasted.
19:33Yeah.
19:34Yeah.
19:35Well, cheers to that.
19:36What I've felt here today is that the community is what makes this station so special.
19:42From a bustling junction sending strawberries across the west country and further afield,
19:48to a quiet revival in a modern hub of community, commuters and nature reserve seekers.
19:54Yatton is once again bringing life to the area.
19:59It's very much worth the stop.
20:02Glasgow is Scotland's largest city, with the central station at its heart.
20:18From its origins in the sixth century, Glasgow grew and prospered from the shipbuilding and trade along the river Clyde.
20:27It became a gateway to the south.
20:29By the 19th century, those wanting to visit Scotland and experience Highland custom were also travelling north.
20:40Historic lines from the south, east and west also converged within, bringing workers, culture, tourists and now, well, me.
20:52So you arrive on the train in the interior of this magnificent station.
20:57But it's not until you step out that you realise, first of all, the scale of it, and second of all, it's beautiful.
21:06That beautiful sandstone, it's been hewn from local quarries.
21:10The craftsmanship that's gone into making this just so fantastic.
21:14And then you've got the portico, beautiful, intricate steel work that Glasgow's famous for.
21:22There's one place and one part of the station that I'm really interested to find out a little bit more about.
21:27It's called Helaman's Bridge or Helaman's Umbrella.
21:33Helaman means Highlander.
21:36Once upon a time, this station bridge provided them with vital shelter and more.
21:40I'm meeting Rona, a lass with Highland roots, for whom this part of Glasgow Central Station has special significance.
21:52Rona, hi.
21:53Hi.
21:54Thanks for taking the time to meet me.
21:55Rona, this beautiful, beautiful building here, part of the Central Station of Glasgow.
22:00Tell me more about it. What is the Helaman's Umbrella or Bridge?
22:05So it's known as the Helaman's Umbrella because it's apparently where Highland folk or Gaelic folk used to meet in the city for a variety of different reasons.
22:16And it started in the late 1880s.
22:19Oh, wow.
22:20And it's a direct connection to the clearances.
22:23In the 19th century, this station was a safety net for thousands of desperate people.
22:32Highland landowners evicted their rent-paying tenants.
22:36Clan families living on the land of their ancestors were put out of their homes and their cottages set ablaze.
22:44These were the Highland clearances.
22:47Some 150,000 people were replaced by more profitable sheep.
22:57They were forcibly removed from their lands in the Highlands and came down to Glasgow for jobs or to get on the boats to migrate.
23:06To the New World?
23:07Yeah.
23:08You'd come here to find out where am I going to get lodgings?
23:11Right.
23:12Where am I going to get a job?
23:13Where can I get some food?
23:15It was sort of welfare.
23:17Somebody would tell you, well, if you go down to the docks, you might get a job today because we heard they're hiring.
23:23Or if you go down to Betty Mackay's up in the East End, she's got a room to spare.
23:28So, in essence, it was that migration from the countryside into the city then, after that huge pressure by the colonial powers to actually move people off their lands and forcibly remove them.
23:38Yeah.
23:39Many gales came to Glasgow, the train station, a shelter and a place to find help.
23:48They brought culture and language which survived and eventually revived in the 21st century.
23:55They used to meet here on a Thursday night or after church on a Sunday.
24:01People continued to meet here for different reasons.
24:04Sure.
24:05After the emergency of the welfare was no longer needed so much.
24:09Right.
24:10But these associations, today they still exist.
24:12Yes.
24:13But mostly it's big haleys and dancers.
24:16Ah, okay.
24:24When my mother was in Glasgow training in the 50s, they would meet here before they went to the dances, hopefully see other people from other islands, maybe get a lumber.
24:35Do you know what a lumber is?
24:36A boyfriend.
24:37Friend.
24:38Lumber.
24:39Yes.
24:40As you can see, it continued to have nice wee connections way into the 50s and 60s.
24:45A story my father, an auntie would tell me, Central Station was so jam packed with people and smog and steam.
24:54My father couldn't find my auntie and they were both pipers.
24:58And there's something called Kantarach, which is a way to vocalise pipe music.
25:03Kantarach.
25:04And he gave out a line and from away in the corner in Central Station, he heard another line in response and it was my auntie.
25:11And they found themselves that way.
25:13That's fantastic.
25:14But you see, the old ways are sometimes the best ways to communicate, aren't they?
25:17That's it.
25:18And do you think those wonderful connections still exist to this day?
25:23I think the city is quite proud of its Gaelic heritage.
25:26Yes.
25:27As they become, we're much more culturally aware.
25:29What is wonderful about Glasgow Central is it is the beating heart of the city throughout the generations.
25:38And I think that's the great thing about a city and a railway station of this size.
25:43It's the social history and the people that make a city because without it, it's just buildings and nothing.
25:48Nothing?
25:49Absolutely.
25:54I'm going back inside the station to learn more.
25:57I'm meeting someone who used to work on the railways here.
26:01He now runs tours and he's taking me underneath the platforms to an underground museum.
26:14They are entwined in their communities from centuries past, but also usher in the future.
26:31Damien is in the Pennines to visit a modern station.
26:35I'm in the hill town of Accrington, a testament to the booming 19th century Lancashire, in the northwest at the heart of the Pennines.
26:48Accrington's original station, built in 1848, fed the coal and freight industry and had double the number of platforms.
27:00But by 2011, it was demolished and rebuilt from scratch.
27:07Now, one of the first purpose-built eco stations in the British Isles.
27:13As an architect, I love railway stations, especially ones that are as green as this is.
27:20It's part of a project called Sustainable Stations, and I'm about to meet the man leading the team behind the new Accrington station.
27:30Gary, how are you doing?
27:31Hi there, how are you doing?
27:32To meet you.
27:33Nice to meet you.
27:34Every time you're thinking about a building, and everybody wants a sustainable building, the starting point is which way is it facing, where is it in the world?
27:42Yeah, precisely. So we're sort of south facing.
27:45This station allows the sun to penetrate deep into the concourse, but it tempers that fierce heat with good design.
27:53You've got this great overhang here, so the sun's coming in, stopping it from going through this curtain wall system.
27:59So you still get the benefit of all of the light, but you don't have that sun just heating the space up.
28:05Absolutely, yeah.
28:06And now you've got the sun, and of course we're in Lancashire, so you've got the rain as well.
28:10Yes, the rainwater off the roof is all collected. It's all brought down the downpipes, which go down the columns, and is then collected in the basement.
28:19So we've got a tank down there, which is one and a half thousand litres.
28:24So you've got the roof structure that's coming over, capturing all of the rain as well.
28:29And the one thing about a building with rainwater is you get all these downpipes, but you have very cleverly designed them in here,
28:37so they're actually travelling down inside these hollow columns into the basement where everything's captured.
28:44Yeah. You're saving 700 litres of water, potentially, per day.
28:50That's a lot.
28:51And that's just the cold water. All the hot water for the building is heated using solar hot water collectors.
28:58Combine that with not needing air conditioning and a building that's warm in winter, and we are looking at sustainable energy.
29:07And then there's the stone.
29:09When we look at materials, like for instance, the stone that we've got here, it's all reclaimed.
29:15It's all from local mills that were pulled down over the years, stored, I think it was about a mile from site.
29:22So all the embedded energy has already been captured as part of the original mill building.
29:27Yes.
29:28So not only have we designed and installed a building with a small carbon footprint,
29:33we're now not producing any more carbon to the environment itself.
29:39So you've got a building that's carbon neutral effectively, with all of this inbuilt technology,
29:45which means that as an organisation, they actually have more money to put back into the community.
29:51Absolutely. Yeah.
29:53And sustaining a community is exactly what's happening in Britain's greenest station.
30:00It's tendered by a grassroots volunteer group, part of a nationwide adoption scheme for unstaffed stations.
30:09Someone's really looking after this place. There's a real sense of care and ownership.
30:16Helpers report faults, clean the platforms and grow flowers.
30:21But Accrington's Stations of Welcome have gone to the next level.
30:31Hello, everyone.
30:32OK, ladies. This is Damien. Damien, this is Stations of Welcome.
30:37Well, hello. I mean, you've got loads going on here. Great setup.
30:41What's on the cars for today?
30:43They're pulling out some red onions.
30:45This is not what I expected, but I love it.
30:49This is a bit of a good harvest here, isn't it? Look at all that lot.
30:53Can't say I've got a huge amount of experience, but yeah, that's not bad going.
30:57That will be a good part.
30:58Oh, wow. Look at these. You can take.
31:00Can I take one of these?
31:01Of course you can.
31:02I haven't been to many train stations where I've ended up harvesting fresh veg.
31:08I mean, that's pretty incredible.
31:10I mean, how did you get involved in this?
31:12Most of us are into gardening. Some kind of gardening anyway.
31:16This is a new thing for me. We go through stations every day and never think that this could be happening.
31:22It's something nice to do for the community as well. Yeah.
31:24So it's not just for us.
31:26How has it been being involved for yourself?
31:28Just been fun and relaxing. And I do an IT job. So mine's just like a desk job.
31:32So for me to have some time to come out here and be with everybody and just be in nature.
31:36IT to onions.
31:38Yes.
31:39That's the ultimate de-stress.
31:40Cooking it as well.
31:42Wow.
31:43Good job, ladies. Good job.
31:45This bounty ends up being cooked and shared, but also donated to charity.
31:52This community spirit is exactly what good architecture can achieve.
31:57And Gary's design is a blueprint for sustainable stations initiative across the country,
32:04where our railway stations are transformed into green, inclusive, vibrant hubs that bring quality of life.
32:13I designed train stations because I believe that train stations are part of the community.
32:20I'm so proud to have, you know, created something like this.
32:25From its recycled stone to grey water harvesting, this isn't just a place to catch a train.
32:33It's a glimpse into the future of what green travel could look like.
32:38And that's what makes this station so special for this tower.
32:50In Scotland at Glasgow Central Station, I'm just taking it all in.
32:54Over 33 million passengers a year come through here.
33:00That and 1,400 trains per day, making it our 10th busiest station.
33:07Keeping this massive hub at the heart of the city running smoothly is a mammoth feat of cooperation,
33:14from the men who built it to the 43 staff who keep it going today.
33:24Paul runs tours here for members of the public who are as interested in the station as I am.
33:34He's collected memorabilia from here that spans at least 100 years, and I can't wait to see it.
33:41Deep in the bills of the central station come underneath the main concourse.
33:47So it's a wee hideaway, really.
33:49This is great.
33:51Oh, wow.
33:52Are you impressed?
33:53Yeah.
33:54This is brilliant.
33:56I found most of this stuff, and I kept it for years and years.
34:01And until I got to the point, my wife said, no more.
34:04There's an atmosphere here that you feel the weight of the city here.
34:08Yep.
34:09Yep.
34:10And there is a smell as well.
34:11There is, yeah.
34:12And the smell side is the diesel that seeps into the walls.
34:15And that's the smells that people remember when they come in here.
34:18Yeah.
34:19I've got a bit of a confession to make.
34:20Mm-hmm.
34:21Because this is really nostalgic for me, that one particularly.
34:24We used to nick them, and I had them in my bedroom.
34:27Oh, did it?
34:29Let me show you this one.
34:30I found this in a skip many years ago.
34:33What?
34:34The paraffin would go in there.
34:35Yeah.
34:36And if you turn it, you see the different aspects on the front.
34:39It's a railway lantern, a handheld light for signalling to the trains,
34:44and different coloured lenses, one for stop and one for go.
34:49But look at that and feel how perfectly well made that is.
34:52Oh, that is beautiful.
34:54When you hold something like this, you can tell the quality of it.
34:58Well, if you give us a chance, I'd make this, so you'd better put it back.
35:02I'll get it locked away.
35:04This museum has a very special job to do.
35:07So important to people was this station that it can trigger long-lost memories,
35:13if only for a short time.
35:15I do tours for men with Alzheimer's, dementia and Parkinson's.
35:19And the best tour I've ever done, it was a group of men that used to work on the railway
35:23in the late 50s, early 60s.
35:24And I'd done the introduction.
35:26There was nothing there at all.
35:27We come downstairs and everything changed like that.
35:30Now, these guys thought, for a brief period in time, they worked in here again.
35:34And it was the 1960s.
35:36So much so, there was one wee man actually thought I was his boss.
35:39And he turned to me and he said, Gaffer.
35:41He said, it's all right if I go for a smoke.
35:43And I said to my, but don't write the earth with it.
35:46You should have seen the happiness and the joy that was in that man's face for a brief period in time.
35:49And especially when you look at the stuff that's in the cabinets in particular,
35:52as I mentioned with the cigarettes, you know, the tiny cigarette packet there.
35:55Can we have a look?
35:56Woodbines.
35:57Remember the five?
35:58Yes.
35:59We used to be able to get five woodbines.
36:00Oh, Benson and Hedges.
36:01Benson and Hedges.
36:02Oh, the makes are available.
36:03Piccadilly.
36:04You had to be quite posh to smoke those.
36:06Extremely.
36:07So, these are the things that people enjoy.
36:09And this wee enclave we've got down here brings people back, brings their memories back.
36:15Because you enter a world that, that it's still past and it's still present.
36:22Central Station is a constant.
36:24Yes.
36:25It's always been here through wars, sad things and happy times as well.
36:32I'm touched by this.
36:34Glasgow Central is exactly what I hoped it would be.
36:38A time capsule full of stories.
36:42Our love of train stations is deep, unshared.
36:47And I'm going further underground with my new mate Paul.
36:51There is a romance about railway stations.
36:54History repeats itself.
37:04I love Glasgow Station.
37:06It's as beautiful as it is colossal.
37:09It's everything a public space should be.
37:14Millions of people meet and rush for trains here.
37:18And as I've been walking around, I can see how this happens with ease.
37:23The concourse has architectural details that I'm intrigued by.
37:28I'm meeting John, one of the shift station managers, to get a privileged view of it all.
37:35When you're just passing through, you're not paying attention to the architecture, which is phenomenal.
37:41You'll see the curves.
37:42Curves.
37:43Yes.
37:44I know where to start, actually.
37:45The curves are designed for crowd control.
37:47So people don't get caught in the corners.
37:51As you see, the floor isn't level.
37:53No, I've not.
37:54Yeah, I know where to start, actually.
37:55Yeah.
37:56And that's to keep the people moving.
37:58If there's a crowd, it will keep them moving.
38:00They'll just stand there.
38:01That's the reason for that.
38:02Keep everybody flowing.
38:03And it's that original Victorian feature, the curves in the floor.
38:07Yeah.
38:08This is all original.
38:09Wow.
38:11Wow.
38:13With over 90,000 passengers travelling through this space every day, the design has stood the test of time.
38:20Controlled undulation in the floor reduces pressure on the building.
38:24And the slopes help people move more quickly, or slowly, in all the right places.
38:31Curves make the most of this massive space.
38:34The entire station is the equivalent of roughly four football fields.
38:40And people have always found each other in exactly the same way.
38:45It's not just a train station.
38:47It's more than a train station.
38:49So as people come here just to meet hourly, people meet under the clock.
38:54You see them, I'm under the clock, can you meet me here?
38:56That's a real cultural thing for Glasgow.
38:58Yeah, definitely.
38:59I'll see you at the clock at Central.
39:00Yeah, yeah.
39:03I love the sense of continuity.
39:05The way we all respond to places.
39:08It's a reminder that some things are never lost.
39:15Hello, gentlemen.
39:16Hi.
39:17Can I help you in any way?
39:19Are you looking for something?
39:20Well, actually, I'm just looking at the station.
39:24At the station.
39:25It's fabulous.
39:26It's fabulous.
39:27What's your name?
39:28My name is Mayuk.
39:29Mayuk, very nice to meet you.
39:30I'm working for the network rail.
39:31Can I help you in any way?
39:32You just let me know.
39:33Oh, thank you.
39:34That's very kind of you.
39:35Well, I'll tell you what.
39:36What do you do here, Mayuk?
39:37I do the security and the customer support.
39:40Help for the customers for the ramps and the wheelchairs and the luggage.
39:44Well, that's a big job.
39:45Yeah, it's a busy station.
39:46So how long is your shift?
39:48It's 12 hour shifts.
39:4912 hour shifts?
39:50Aye.
39:51That's a long time.
39:52No, it's fine.
39:53You don't, you don't believe.
39:54It's 12 hours just goes on so fast.
39:56Safety is the main thing.
39:57It's my main job is to check every corner of the station's platforms and look for suspicious
40:03things.
40:08Mayuk is part of a 23 strong team on high alert, who make sure everyone gets to where they need
40:15to go safely.
40:20What's the story behind you arriving here?
40:23Actually, I'm from India.
40:24I came here with my wife's studies.
40:26My background is army.
40:28I was in army for 17 to 18 years.
40:30So you were in the Indian army for 18 years.
40:32And from there, I get an opportunity, a big opportunity.
40:35It's a network rail.
40:37It's a dream for everyone to walk in and need to walk rail.
40:40What is it that you like about working in the station?
40:43I can see so many peoples, many cultures, many races, many varieties of peoples are walking
40:50and all are happy.
40:51Some are sad.
40:52It's really amazing for me.
40:53Hats off to you because it's a big thing to move your whole family to another country.
40:58I mean, it's impressive.
40:59It's really tough.
41:00It's really tough.
41:01But I'm really happy.
41:02Well, thank goodness you're on the station.
41:04And I'm sorry for wandering around looking a little bit lost.
41:06No worries.
41:07I'm just asking for your safety because you are lost.
41:10That's why I just asked you.
41:11You are absolutely brilliant.
41:13It's an absolute pleasure to meet you.
41:15And I wish you all the very best.
41:17It's lovely to meet you.
41:18Bye.
41:19Take care.
41:20And to you.
41:21And to you.
41:26It's fair to say that Glasgow Central Station, over the centuries, has helped shape
41:34the modern city of Glasgow.
41:37That city that we know and love today.
41:43It's almost time for me to go home.
41:45But my new mate, Paul, who used to work on the railways and now runs tours, has promised
41:51me one last gift before I go.
41:54He's taking me to a long lost platform, frozen in time.
41:59Right.
42:01Right.
42:02Here we go.
42:04What about this, Si?
42:05Flipping heck.
42:07This is unbelievable.
42:09Look at the metal work.
42:11This is like the inside of a ship, Si.
42:13Look, every single rivet was hammered in by hand.
42:16See, that's proper heavy industry skill and craft, isn't it?
42:20It's wonderful.
42:21I tell you what, I don't want to say anything, but somebody's nicked your railway tracks.
42:26Trains haven't run through here for over 60 years, except maybe a ghost train or two.
42:37Paul discovered this four years ago and started sharing it with us all.
42:42This is a forgotten platform.
42:46The low-level platforms are on my left-hand side there.
42:49Right.
42:50Trains running from Baloch through to Motherwell and back again.
42:53Even when you think 1,400 trains per day come in at a central station.
42:58Think of the pounding on the superstructure of this building and nothing has moved.
43:03It's a testament to the men that built this place.
43:05It is a testament to the men and it's a testament to their skill set and their passion and wanting the city to succeed in the infrastructure that was built.
43:15And especially in the lack of health and safety in those days, those men effectively gave their lives to build this place.
43:21There was no air defenders, harnesses.
43:24Think the risks that they took, the men that lost their lives.
43:28It's hard to say how many labourers died working for the railways back in the day, but for decades, many thousand per year.
43:38How was this used during the Second World War and the bombing raids on the Clyde?
43:42Well, during the Second World War, it was still functional to keep the war effort going.
43:48When you look at the London stations that were used as area shelters and things like that, that was not the case down here.
43:54This had to be a functioning open railway for them to transport troops and munitions.
44:01I had an old guy down here a number of weeks ago and he said to me,
44:04the last time I was here, Paul, was 1958. He was a child and he remembered coming off a train here onto that platform.
44:11Wow.
44:12And I said, what was it like? And he said, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face because of the smoke.
44:16Yeah.
44:17And the smell. And he said he could remember what it was like.
44:19What do you think it is that keeps that passion about railway stations so close to people's hearts?
44:35There is a romance about railway stations that doesn't exist in airports.
44:40I've had couples in here that met under the station clock in the 1950s.
44:45I had couples in here that met under the station clock last year.
44:49So history repeats itself.
44:51I cannot thank you enough, Paul.
44:53My pleasure.
44:54It's been absolutely amazing.
44:55My pleasure.
44:56My pleasure.
44:57My pleasure.
44:58In the same way that Scotland is so much more than its rugged beauty and stone built grandeur,
45:04Glasgow Central is more than just a station.
45:09It's a community that stretches back one and a half centuries.
45:13A shelter for ancestral clans, a place to find work and a way for countless folk to support their families.
45:26And then there are the platforms with their inflow and outflow of culture and ideas over many years.
45:36That's the magic of the place.
45:38The keeper of Glasgow's past and the light that shines towards the future.
45:43All wrapped up in this inspirational railway station.
45:50Always the heart and the hub of this city.
45:53It's been an absolute pleasure.
45:56Thank you, Glasgow.
45:58Until the next time.
46:06We'll see you next time.
46:07Bye.
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