Why is the flying scotsman famous
The Flying Scotsman: History's Most Famous Train | Full Steam Ahead EP4 | Absolute History
the age of steam
shaped how we live today
the victorians laid over 20 000 miles of
lines
in the biggest engineering project the
country has ever seen
connecting our towns with high-speed
links
revolutionizing trade and transportation
communication and recreation
it was the greatest transformation in
our history
but how did it happen to find out
historians ruth goodman
alex langland's shoveling coal is
something i'm going to get very very
familiar with
and pete again
of bringing the railways back to life as
they would have been during the golden
age of steam
i feel like i'm in a western this is
very definitely the best team engine
[Music]
they will be helped by armies of
enthusiasts who keep the age of steam
alive
on britain's 500 miles of preserved
railway
this is the way to experience train
travel isn't it
they'll follow in the footsteps of the
world's finest engineers
these are the men
[Music]
[Music]
like the impact of the railways
this is the story of how the railways
created
modern britain
the steam railways connected towns and
cities right across britain
revolutionizing the transportation of
goods
people even information
the way we communicate in britain has
never been the same
since the arrival of the railways and i
want to find out firsthand
just how they transformed britain's
postal service
in the second half of the 19th century
britain was in the grip of an electrical
revolution
i'm interested in finding out how
practically the railways facilitated
this new age in communications
[Music]
britain was becoming ever more connected
the introduction of express trains like
the flying scotsman
meant people began to see themselves as
belonging to one common culture
one economy and crucially one nation
before the railways most people in
britain thought of themselves as being
from
galloway or monmouthshire or derbyshire
they didn't really think of themselves
as being british but within a very short
time of the railways arriving
that had completely changed how did we
get to feel
so connected
in 1800 the quickest way to send a
letter was by horse-drawn mail coach
but it could take days to arrive
as the population became more literate
the volume of letters soared
so what was needed was a quicker more
efficient way of sending mail
in 1838 the introduction of mail trains
provided a solution
letters could now be conveyed in hours
rather than days
this is all the posts from loughborough
[Music]
nice little feature a ramp down the
stairs for sliding down the bags of
posts in this case or indeed any luggage
i suspect it's every child's dream but
i've seen a sign saying
don't use a slide
[Music]
at the great central railway in
loughborough
peter is bringing this postal service
back to life
helped by a team of enthusiasts
[Music]
peter's helping paul harrison load the
mail collected from the local area
we'll come in this door here okay
we have to call out the destinations and
then they're logged in on the train
right okay so we've got burton on train
train first the post was roughly divided
into sacks for the different areas that
the mail train was traveling to
she was just looking at the labels on
top there yeah yeah coalville
colgan coleville another cold
at a time when the people of victorian
london could expect up to 12
postal deliveries to their homes every
day and the suburbs around six
speed was everything in 1936
the role played by the railways in
speeding up the postal system was
immortalized in one of the first
documentaries about working life
nightmail
it tells the story of the postal special
carrying mail through the night from
london to glasgow complete with a wh
orden poem
this is the nightmail crossing the
border bringing the check and the postal
order
letters for the rich letters for the
poor the shop at the corner of the girl
next door
pulling up beater casted climb the
gradients against her but she's on time
[Music]
to make the service even faster trains
didn't just transport the mail
they featured a new innovation the tpo
otherwise known as the traveling post
office
now the mail could be sorted on the move
too
darby lester
stafford each sorter has 48 pigeonholes
known as phillips representing different
towns
the mail must be sorted before the train
reaches its first destination
tpo historian brian hallett is on hand
to help
it's a race against time so what do we
do
is just take the bundles take the
bundles yeah and with your
trusty scissors you i left my trusty
scissors at home thank you very much
and am i going stance in stamps out does
it matter
normally you do stamps out
in its heyday the tpo workers picked up
sorted and delivered 500 million letters
a year
these men were key to the efficient
running of the country ensuring mail got
delivered on time
i suppose you must go quite fast at this
the tpo
sorters were among the fastest sorters
in royal mail
so they were known to sorting up to
three thousand letters an hour
per person per person three thousand
letters an hour what's that that's
300 every six minutes one a second you
it
i mean three three thousand letters an
hour is an immense amount
i think i managed to get close to one a
minute
and um i suspect someone else is gonna
have to
resort what i've done because i kind of
started losing track
these were the postal elite they were
faster
harder working and with the stamina to
sort at speed against the clock
the people that worked on here if you
were doing the northeast tpo
and you were based in newcastle you'd
travel down
the first night on the passenger train
and work
back to newcastle sorting that night
yeah the following night you would work
from newcastle to london
sleep over in digs during the day then
you work the next night back to
newcastle it must have been quite a
tight-knit bunch of guys
very much so can you imagine working
with a bunch of people
in the same coach for five nights of the
week
you've got to get on yeah if you didn't
get on you you didn't survive on the
traveling post office
yeah yeah despite working at speed on a
constantly moving train
there was no room for error the sorters
were responsible for making sure their
affiliates were empty when they finished
sorting
and the cleaners would actually go
through after the shift if they found
any letters
they'd get a bonus and that bonus would
come out of the sorter's salary
so you want to make sure they're yeah
fully clear otherwise the cleaner has
taken out more money
yeah once sorted
the letters for the first mail drop are
tied into bundles
tying up the letters pull the string all
the way down you pull the string down
and cut off the leg you need
yeah yeah so these now go in here
so now we need to tie that up ready to
go into the pouch
to drop off so if you want to tie that
on there
okay two or three times around with the
string and these labels
this is the same as the bags we're
loading on at the start so that just
tells you
where it's going that's right that's got
his label on
so that's ready to go down into the
pouch ready to be dropped off
i'm going off quite soon isn't it okay
all right that's a lot take it away
the tpo didn't just deliver and collect
from stations
it also picked up and dropped off posted
small towns and villages along the way
without the train even stopping
[Music]
the first use of this system was on the
london birmingham railway in 1838
within 70 years there were 245
in operation so the first thing to do is
get these flaps over so you get a very
neat
package where nothing can come apart
and you don't lose any of the mailboards
final one
[Music]
imagine doing this all night long
on a journey from edinburgh to london
okay so this is this is a
quite constant process i'm just getting
worn out doing this one
so there you have one male pouch ready
for dispatch
next the male pouch is attached to an
arm
on the outside of the train
just pull strong
some workers were so terrified of doing
this they paid a colleague to hang the
bags out for them
it feels quite weird so you bring the
bag to the edge
back to the edge
that flap just closes to stop it falling
off
you do find that they will come off so
we put a piece of string around it
just as an extra safety so we don't drop
the bag before we should do
it because that would just be a
nightmare i suppose if the bag falls off
before
the drop zone you've got to oh how do
you find it well the people who are on
the ground
have to walk back up the track yeah and
find all the letters
so this piece of string is actually
quite an essential but it is yes
further down the line ruth is getting
ready for the tpo's mail to arrive
oh i see and that's it locked in place
to collect the bags
so they're supposed to shoot in like
there because the train passes through i
certainly wouldn't like to be down that
end
when the bags came off the tree the real
thing is stand well clear
integer right as well as male pouches
being dropped off from the train
they could also be picked up with help
from tpo expert phil
payne she's preparing the mail ready for
the train to collect
i don't like these bags
i tell you what really i find
interesting is how much they look like
saddlebags you know
they still got that form from the old
stagecoach days haven't they
it's leather made you know by a saddler
you know
there's a lot of work goes into these
it's all hand-stitched yeah yes at least
there'd be no other way to do it would
there be six layers in that
so many of these at older crafts you
know carry on
a life in the automated railways for
donkey's years
you couldn't find anything else to
replace that
kind of um quality of leather uh to do
the job that it's about to do
i mean like trying to hit in that it's
gonna need to take some punishment so
they stuck with leather on the tpo
there's three minutes to go before the
mail pickup
you push the top lever down yeah and
then push the whole thing down in one
smooth operation
until it clicks in place at the bottom
yeah you only do that once you've called
board
then after you've done the exchange the
mailbags will come in
and we'll call net and that's when you
release it to bring the net back in
okay and i can't practice this now can i
there's no way you can practice it now
you've only got one chance
right that hasn't really already you
have to do because we can only put the
net out
in safe locations so how many letters
would be in one parcel like this
i should imagine anything up to about a
thousand girls
in weight bags will come about 60 pounds
50 pounds
of post so the train hits it at full
speed
they're doing around about 70 80 miles
an hour okay
if it ever went wrong you'd be picking
up letters down the track
for weeks so that's that one done
look at those up there yep
quite a white so as you can see yep good
there we go the leather pouches are
attached to a stand by a spring clip
it's not really a one-man job is it
definitely not there
after word is received that the tpo is
approaching from the nearby signalmun
the bags are swung out ready for
collection
yeah right ready
[Music]
on the mail train there's less than a
minute to go before the pickup
peter is preparing to drop the net are
we in quite a dangerous area here
we're in a very dangerous area because
this is the location where the
couches will come flying in once and hit
the net
so the faster the train's going the
harder they come in
yes at 85 miles an hour they couldn't
land anywhere from
hitting the ceiling and onto benches the
male was picked up and dropped off
simultaneously
on the postal special from london to
glasgow these exchanges took place
34 times a night so the crew had to know
the route
intimately if the net is put out too
early it could hit a signal or a bridge
so the team looks for a trackside board
indicating the exchange apparatus is
approaching
do you want to get to the net so this is
a lever yeah and you're going to say
well one of my colleagues are going to
shout board
now no no you want two bridges
and 45
[Music]
it's it
okay net net well done
okay it's all right we still got a net
yes
whoa
quite substantial isn't it oh it's
remarkably physical
something as light as a letter oh my
goodness
that that was a flash wasn't it yeah all
done very quickly
it's almost like magic suddenly you know
these two parcels have
miraculously appeared and yeah it's it's
the mail ready to be sorted i suppose
be already yeah we can't just stand
around get home get it out there and
get it back out to the next stop we need
to get the lads working
yeah for over 130 years tpo's worked
across the country
picking up and dropping off mail but as
trains got faster
the exchanges became more dangerous so
in 1971
the service was scrapped on a modern
train you can't even open the window
now these days it gets car checks aren't
you
do many people fall out um they didn't
have many
uh accidents with the tpo crew it was
more
the driver and the fireman looking out
when they shouldn't have done
well to watch them getting that getting
hit by the bags
standing up on the standard and there's
quite a few stories about the firemen
losing the head
literally so it's quite a dangerous
occupation once the mail was collected
the process of sorting started all over
again
it was a never-ending cycle even tea
breaks were taken on the goal
[Music]
another one crew ran from
you know say nine at night until six in
the morning they had to eat
and so they provided them with basic and
they are basic
cooking facilities to be careful because
it's hot
because they didn't actually have a meal
break while they were working
they'd carry on working have their tea
pie and carry on sorting
do you fancy a pie thank you very much
[Music]
before the railways few people traveled
beyond their local towns or villages
so felt little connection with other
parts of the country
but the railways forced the change that
was to finally get the nation
working in sync the traditional way of
telling time back in the medieval period
was to use the position of the sun and a
sundial and it would have been
watched by one of the church members who
would have come out
and he would have checked that sundial
and when the time was right he would
have gone in
and rung the bell and everyone in this
community would have heard that bell
they would have known what time it was
what time to say masses and what time to
say prayers
as the sun rises earlier in the east
than it does in the west
cities across britain could vary in time
by up to 30 minutes
in an age when the horse was the fastest
mode of transport
the odd minute difference here and there
didn't matter
but once high-speed trains began
connecting britain's towns and cities
this became a problem
[Music]
london was four minutes ahead of reading
11 minutes ahead of bristol
18 minutes ahead of exeter
[Music]
resulting in some very confusing
timetables
something had to be done alex has come
to bristol corn exchange to meet railway
historian david turner
so what's going on up there well
actually we have two minute hands on
this clock
okay the red one is london time
the darker one is actually bristol time
right okay so that that darker hand is
10 minutes essentially behind the other
red hand
which is reflecting the two different
time zones yeah so when the railways
came this brought with it
greenwich meantime because the railways
needed everything standardized they
needed trains to be
meeting at the right places and for you
know everybody along the line all the
staff to have the same time
standardizing time across britain
coordinated the railway network
allowing it to run more efficiently and
making towns and cities
more connected but some areas were
resistant to change
how are people over here in the west of
england reacting to that they
they kind of feel the railways invading
them the area
there is a nickname for london time and
it's called cockney time
it's a sort of kind of derogatory term
for that time from over there yeah and
the people
are quite resistant so apparently in the
commercial
halls in bristol this gentleman stands
up with his grandfather's pocket watch
yeah and he argues if one hand was good
enough for my grandfather it's good
enough for me
this is an invasion the other time is
coming in
invading the area and
changing people's rhythms their way of
life that have been in existence for
well centuries
this was a time of change in britain
while steam was revolutionizing how we
traveled and communicated
a new source of power was being
developed alongside it
one that would change the world
electricity
the first use of electricity was a
revolutionary communication system
the telegraph
it allowed messages to be sent long
distance down a wire
instantaneously
but to connect towns and cities cables
would need to be laid between them
and with ready laid corridors through
the countryside
the railways provided the perfect routes
the railways themselves took advantage
of this new system
to ensure that a safe distance was
maintained between trains
[Music]
signal boxes communicated the position
of a train
along its route using the electric
telegraph
and this is all using telegraph
technology
that's how you're communicating with the
other signal box yes for a series of
bells
relayed for telegraph that's right
at milton keynes museum bill griffiths
is showing alex how to use the first
commercial electric telegraph to send
peter a message
developed by cook and wheatstone in the
1830s
it took some getting used to
peter's going to be sat at the other end
of the line waiting for a message
um can you show me how this thing works
well you
as you can see you've got a range of
lessons there and you actually have to
point to the letters and you do that by
moving these handles in opposite
directions so you have to spell out
every every letter
alex's telegraph machine is connected to
peters by wires
and moving switches on one moves the
needles on the other
the anticipation right okay so i'm going
to
send uh peter a message answer
m so if i then go why
my my friend there's no space bar is
there here
okay just watching these arrows so
they both point to f that makes an f
in an age before telephones being able
to send
instant messages known as telegrams was
revolutionary
but there were limitations there's no u
and there's no c
either we're missing letters here there
are
and i used to worry about that i thought
well how on earth do you send messages
when you've got some lectures missing c
is quite important i use quite important
we actually do it all the time don't we
we send messages without certain
lectures and we get used to it
so if you left it in most occasions if
you left a letter
out of a word or misspelt it yeah and
they had this problem they did
and people would understand by the whole
message
ah we're receiving
we obviously had a couple of drinks are
you receiving me i think that is
okay so let's see what comes through
oh i b
e by before i before
always came to pick me up on my mistakes
peter isn't he
soon railways became the hub of
communication
with telegraph offices to send and
receive telegrams
for the public for businesses and even
the police while
criminals could make their getaway on a
train the fastest mode of transport at
the time
the long arm of the law could now get
there even faster
it was the well-known murderer john
tahoe who was caught
and he thought he got away with it got
on the train got away
and they were able to signal from uh
that slow to paddington
they couldn't telegraph his name that
wouldn't mean anything to him but of
course they were able to telegraph a
description
of what he looked like and they
recognized his cello or they thought
they did
getting off the train so you've got all
the bobbies at the other end knowing
what this guy looks like that's right
and that's how they got him
an unprecedented i mean something we
take for granted nowadays because it's
unprecedented back in that day yeah well
i think it was the beginning of making
our whole lives much quicker and that's
a road that we've traveled on from then
until now so everything's got speedier
to start off with
it was just use a sort of emergency
service uh i don't think it'd be used
every day
but then of course business found out
how useful that would be to get the
information really quickly
yeah so that took off and then of course
the news
and then spread to be used in more and
more different ways
every time i send an email
i should be thinking about this machine
because this is basically
where it all began telegrams meant
breaking news stories could be sent to
newspaper companies in london's fleet
street within minutes
the victorian age saw a boom in
newspaper sales
thanks to the railway network that
distributed them
printer patrick rowe is showing peter
how a newspaper proof
would have been quickly assembled once
news came through the telegraph system
so you're you're putting it in upside
down
yes it's just easier to read from left
to right the way you you normally would
right the letters are all back to front
so that when you ink them up and print
them
they're the right way around it wasn't
just the railways that boosted
circulation
in the 19th century homes were
increasingly being fitted with gas or
even electric lighting
providing more time for reading is that
rubber or metal
it's zinc and the tones are produced by
these dots
and the smaller the dot the the lighter
the tone and the larger the dots
the the darker the tone yeah
it's like you're doing this with bits of
meccano
sorry what are these so these are coins
these are the very old-fashioned type
called temple coins
where you can see what's going on the
two wedges yeah and as you turn
the key make makes the wedges take up
more space
yeah so it compresses so it locks
everything the type and
locks it all up nice and right nice and
firm
so we put the type in so i'll have to
ink it up and
uh proof it
before the railways newspapers had been
a luxury item
the times cost five pence a third of the
daily wage of a station porter
but when the daily telegraph dropped its
price to a penny
in 1856 other papers soon followed suit
that's better oh that's good
that's so crisp isn't it basically they
are the proof the proof and i would be
taking this to
somebody would need to check it before
it goes together
with the lines of type to make put the
whole pages together
so flying scotsman breaks world speed
record so we just need to check the
picture oh my goodness i can see the
driver
although headlines were still handset
the body of text was set
using state-of-the-art machinery
then the proof finalized the newspaper
was then ready for printing
as newspapers became more affordable
circulation
soared driving a need for better
printing methods
by the 1860s rotary printing presses fed
by rolls of paper
five miles long were able to print up to
twelve thousand pages per hour
newspapers could now be printed through
the night
[Music]
and delivered to the railway station in
the early hours of the morning
[Music]
this is news today and it's chip paper
tomorrow and that was only possible
because of the railways
[Music]
newspapers could be on sale in towns and
cities all over britain
before breakfast
for the first time it was possible to
wake up to national news
hot off the press
inside the newspapers readers were
bombarded with adverts for goods and
services
from health pills and skin creams
to job vacancies
even babies
in victorian britain having an
illegitimate child
carried a huge stigma
but amongst the classifieds were adverts
purporting to solve an unmarried
mother's problem
at a time before adoption and fostering
laws
it was perfectly legal to hand your
child over to whoever you wanted
even a complete stranger
social historian dr meg arno has spent
years researching these adverts
tell me why on earth are these very
lovely sounding
adverts such a problem okay we have an
advertisement
here wanted a child to adopt by a
respectable married couple
who have no children of their own
premium required
30 pounds it could actually be a genuine
couple who have no children
and they want to adopt
but there is some code there that
suggests to me that it might actually be
something different
they're saying they want a really quite
significant premium
of money to be handed over with the
child that is they want 30 pounds
they will take a child if you pay them
30 quid yes
we could well be talking about uh baby
farmer
a form of human trafficking the term
baby farmer was coined in the 19th
century to describe
people who profited from taking on
infants for a fee
often with the intention of selling them
on deliberately neglecting them
or even to dispose of them all together
the railways made it possible for
unmarried mothers
to travel far away from the people they
knew and hand over their child on a
station platform
all the while remaining entirely
anonymous
the very last baby farmer to hang in
britain was rhoda willis who
died in wales in august 1907.
so rhoda willis advertised for
a child to adopt and someone very
quickly answered her
ad with a newborn baby which she picked
up
at a railway station along with eight
pounds
and then she caught the train back to
her lodgings in cardiff
and and then her landlady found the body
in her room
and she also confessed to actually
killing the child on the train
gosh before she even got home before she
even got home
and i have come across other cases where
there are allegations that these infants
were killed on trains
so another you know the darkest element
at the worst end of it's an
utterly cynical murdering
trade what was most important to a new
a woman with an illegitimate child who
she was trying to get rid of was that it
was
kept secret because her reputation
was shredded by having an illegitimate
child
and the railways provided that secret
somewhere environment
nefarious activities almost any sort
really
a new place rather paradoxically
a new place is no different is it from
the internet the internet is an amazing
thing
and this new flow of information and
communication across the world but
part of the information that flows is
criminal is criminal
[Music]
as the 19th century progressed new
railway lines
funded by entrepreneurs began to spread
to every corner of britain
initially there was little coordination
in building these new routes
but gradually they began to be linked up
making long-distance rail travel
possible
linking scotland and england were two
competing routes
the west coast line and the most
celebrated
the east coast line
the most famous locomotive to work this
route has just undergone
10 years of restoration costing four and
a half
million pounds
the flying scotsman the most iconic
steam engine
of all time i mean look at the size of
those wheels
phenomenal aren't they railway companies
on the west coast and east coast lines
were competing to provide the quickest
service
to do this they needed ever more
powerful locomotives
so in 1923 one of the greatest engineers
of the age
sir nigel grizzly gave us the flying
scotsman
the first locomotive to officially reach
100 miles an hour
the journey from london to edinburgh had
taken 10 and a half hours
now behind the flying scotsman it took
just eight
rail operations manager noel hartley is
prepping it to go back out on the main
line
hi noel great to meet you yeah right
well the flying scotsman service
traveled between
edinburgh and london but this locomotive
enabled a non-stop service up right
that's right it had it had a few
features um to enable it to do that so
it had
um enough coal to get from london to
edinburgh or vice versa
which was nine tons the loco also needed
a huge amount of water
it could carry 5000 gallons but that
just wasn't enough
to prevent it having to stop to refill
there was an ingenious solution
water troughs were placed between the
rails along the route
by luring a scoop into the trough the
flying scotsman could collect an extra
12 000 gallons of water
without stopping
[Music]
another issue was crew fatigue normally
a driver would do
you know um four five six hours on a
shift but because it was going to be
an eight hour nine hour journey they
needed to change the crew halfway
so they invented a corridor tender
mainline steam engines pulled a tender
where the coal and water was stored
but this meant the driver and firemen
were cut off from the rest of the train
gresley's inclusion of a corridor
through the tender meant the crew could
now pass from the footplate to the
carriages behind
tight squeeze there peter right there
i've been laying off the donuts alex
look my goodness look at
the this of a corridor enabled the
flying scotsman to make the first ever
non-stop service between london and
edinburgh in 1928.
mr nigel grisley designed these engines
he
just emphasizes the genius of the man
and he really pushed the engines to push
the boundaries of speed
he did by using the simple innovation of
the corridor
swapping crews halfway meant the job of
looking out for more than
700 signals and shoveling nine tons of
coal
could now be shared
so we're getting to see parts of the
flying scotsman
that other enthusiasts can't reach well
there's one other innovation that made
the flying scotsman once the world's
fastest locomotive
but to get to it you have to go under
the engine
and what you need to do is find
something to hold on to and pull
yourself up between the frames
don't break anything i'll try not to
including yourself
steam engines conventionally had two
cylinders but grizzly's flying scotsman
had three cylinders enabling it to run
more smoothly with greater power
there we go raining oil
and then you basically pull it open oh
whoa
it's quite a bit isn't it this is
obviously one of the dirtiest jobs that
you have to do on a steam engine playing
out the smoke
there's a dirty job that needs doing no
yeah me as your man
although once the pinnacle of
engineering the flying
scotsman is at its heart a steam
locomotive
still requiring long and complicated
procedures to get it up and running
it obviously isn't the case of just
turning an ignition key and starting
this thing up there's actually quite a
warm-up phase isn't there
there is a warm-up phase you've got
around a 24-hour period
of warmth gently warming the engine
through before you even light the fire
you've got to check
inside the firebox to make sure that
nothing's leaking so can we have a look
in the firebox
yep you can uh just obviously lower
yourself down and um
and slide in there get reminded of
winnie the pooh doing this
oh my goodness you can just feel the
residual heat here
when was it when was when was the loco
three days ago so it's still reasonably
warm
yeah wow it's amazing the heat coming
off of this yeah
three days later goodness this this is
what i imagine
hell's like before you light the fires
yeah
once the firebox has been checked it
must be loaded up with coal
you're going to do it in one in one
swing so start from there and then round
them straight in
momentum otherwise
[Music]
without breaking the shovel idea
it's a small hole it is a small one well
i've made she got through that
ah this right peter we won't go out the
station
put it near the firehole door until it
gets burning properly
what we need to do is throw it on top of
that coal at the front
what there we go all right the fire is
in the fire box
we have fire okay so the fire is going
quite well now
it's time to put a little bit more coal
on top my go
well no the pressure's on now
[Music]
revenge of the dish best served cold
okay so is it all right if i put some on
there just so it goes in the right place
yeah you go on then that's great
[Music]
what's the master at work yeah
you can see why in order to graduate
into a mainline
loco you had to work your way up you had
to work your way through the
shunting the branch lines clearing the
whole shebang
well all of the oiling as well you know
knowing all the component parts
so that you're prepared and trained to
take on a piece of technology which is
effectively the concord of its age
keeping passengers goods and mail
services running across the rail network
created a whole new array of
the railways employed a workforce of
half a million
from engine drivers and firemen
engineering crews
boilermakers through to guards
[Music]
signalmen and porters
but none of the trains could run if it
wasn't for this one job
[Music]
the wheel tapper there is a ring there
isn't there
okay it was the job of the wheel tapper
to check the wheels before each journey
in the case of the flying scotsman and
its carriages it would mean tapping over
120 wheels
[Music]
a cracked wheel like a cracked bell does
not sound the same as one in good
working order
they do not ring true that one rings
quite nicely
nice isn't it that's ringing like a bell
really you can hear it echoing down the
rail
that's right this one
doesn't ring quite like the other one
but you i don't think you would see the
crack
well unless it was really obvious right
so so
it might be just a hairline crack
somewhere
so that is the point of the tapping then
it's defining things that you couldn't
see with a naked eye
yeah but the old wheel tappers would
they'd be tuned to that they'd know
exactly
if you didn't if that's what you're
doing because i mean that was an entire
job wasn't it
oh that's all they did
[Music]
is showing ruth how defects were
recorded on a form
and clipped onto the wagon
if it was a serious fault they put a red
card in it which means it's it's totally
out of um
[Music]
if a faulty wheel caused the train to
break down or derail
the network could come to a standstill
delaying goods
passengers and mail so damaged wheels
had to be sent to the workshop for
repair
wheels such as those on the flying
scotsman are composed of a wheel pan
and a separate steel tire
it meant that if the tire cracked or
wore out the whole wheel wouldn't need
replacing
at the south devon railway workshop ruth
is helping engineer richard elliot fit a
new tire to a train wheel
first the tyre is heated to make it
expand
this is the tyre itself that's the steel
band that's the tyre itself that's the
sorry
and this is just a fire all the way
around it
yeah a gas fire in this place you've got
about the same as your
pyrrole grill oh my goodness yeah
yeah just a series of flames so all
you're doing
is warming it to about 220 degrees right
gas mark 8 for you for about 25 minutes
how do you know when it's cooked enough
well basically
she'll go a nice golden color all over
and the modern technology gives us
things called temple sticks which are
basically waxes that melt at specific
temperatures
the other way that are doing it more
victorian for you
um was basically the spit on it so when
i do any harm if i try this bit
yeah give it a go see if you can see how
hot it is i
missed got my fit in his rubbish
we've been getting you a glass of water
hopeless
have you gone oh you're much better
oh look at that bubble jump see the
bubble jumps yep all right so we're
after a little bit hotter today we're
not quite
although some modern elements have been
introduced the method is exactly as it
would have been in the age of steam
so obviously our crayon is saying we're
we're hot enough
right and if we can spit on it it's
rather dry because
so it just hits and and forms into a
ball and skids around on it
so we're we're probably about hot enough
hey connect so let's go for it let's
switch her off and put her in
once the tire is expanded the wheel pan
is inserted
the tire must fit within a thousandth of
an inch of the wheel diameter
that's also accurate the tire is pressed
and as it cools it shrinks onto the
wheel pan
excellent it's hot it's all spun down
hold on that was really exciting thank
you
i know you made it look so calm
professional but i i found that pretty
exciting actually
that's good right cup of tea
in the days of steam the bigger the
driving wheels
the faster the local could go
on small locomotives the wheels are
around three feet in diameter
but the flying scotsman's wheels are
more than double this size
it was a locomotive built for speed a
racehorse of the locomotive world
with the loco now in full steam it's
ready to recreate the legendary route
connecting london and edinburgh don't
make them like they used to do they
no look at this amethyst that's actually
named
travelling in style isn't it are we here
in here good stuff
with rival railway companies competing
to attract passengers
the range and quality of services they
offered was of paramount importance
head steward kieran flynn is training
alex in the exacting
standards expected by first-class
passengers
back in the 1930s do we know when this
started then
serving food on track the first the
first meal served on the train was 1878
right and the papers at the time
reported that um the food was all lovely
and that
even though the train was traveling at
60 miles an hour and the brakes were
applied
nothing was spilled nothing was broken
right they were quite impressed by that
in the time so i've got quite a lot to
live up to today i i got a
i got a feeling that's not going to be
the situation for me today
kieran is showing alex how to lay a
table for a five-course dinner
our main plate here that's right our
salad plate goes on top here
yep okay and our side plate there that's
correct to the left
okay now cutlery so right hand side with
the knife so you have your starter knife
on the outside
right the main knife on the inside
working in towards the main course
and then these um great scissors
great scissors yeah right this really is
fine dining isn't it
so if you had a bunch of grapes and you
needed to get through the stem yep
that's what that's yeah right that's it
just now
kieran providing service in style in a
regular restaurant is hard enough
but how hard is it doing it on a train
that's doing 60 miles an hour it can be
quite tricky
the main thing is just to not fight it
is if you try and
uh fight against it then you'll you'll
slam into the walls a bit harder
is to be prepared for it and just kind
of try and bounce up whatever you land
on
right and walk with your legs slightly
wider apart right okay
okay so a bit of a gate yeah sort of sea
legs in some ways isn't it
having good having good sea legs
in the 1920s and 30s the flying scotsman
was the pride of the nation
first-class passengers were expected to
dress smartly
[Music]
even peters made an effort peter oh
oh my goodness white yeah
on a railway powered by steam how am i
stealing
how long are you going to stay right
long enough because it's only for
dining i'm not intending to go up there
and shovel it
not particularly happy ruth word on the
grapevine
we've got a trainee waiter
i've got my sea legs my gate watching
where i'm going
to serve food on a swaying train without
spilling it
waiters were blindfolded and trained to
walk along a white line on the carriage
floor
as the trains speeded along
this is quite rocky rolly
are you alright
in 15 minutes i need to have these
customers
head chef tony keane is challenged with
cooking high quality restaurant food
in a tiny kitchen at over 80 miles an
hour
how many meals are you looking at
preparing then on a train like this um
on average we're doing around 250 diners
across the different classes 250 diners
yeah we cook a lot of the meals to order
there's 250 people that will do 1500
plates of food
today individual plates of food which
all have to be washed by hand
by my guys down there both inside the
wall with hot water
with space limited early victorian
dining cars had an open-air veranda at
the kitchen end
which was used for jobs like peeling
potatoes
inside the food was cooked on an open
fire
you're cooking on gas though i mean
imagine what it would have been like
cooking on
on coke i can't imagine the the the salt
the mess
respect goes out to those guys um we
we have we have operational issues along
those lines but not as
hardcore as it would have been done in
the past it would have been a proper
workhouse in those days
in 1925 passengers on british trains
consumed over seven and a half
million meals on long distance journeys
they were up to three sittings tables
could be reserved by telegram
wow
the first pullman dining cars designed
by american engineer george pullman
were made in detroit workshops and
shipped to britain
but the flying scotsman didn't just
cater for diners
they also tempted passengers with other
luxury services
from a cinema to a hairdressing salon
passengers could also listen to music on
headphones
for the business traveler there was even
a dictaphone service
we've both dressed up for this
experience do you think that most of the
people
who were doing this for real were also
you know the well-heeled the
well-dressed
well london and edinburgh were the two
largest cities in the british empire
certainly
in terms of finance so it's such an
important connection
that not being able to communicate
easily and quickly between business
people
must have been absolutely a godsend
and you can just imagine the whole train
can't you buzzing with really important
conversations
as well as with people off on their
holes to to the highlands of scotland
the flying scotsman is crossing the
royal border bridge
the gateway to scotland
but in the restaurant car there's a
crisis
the kitchen is running low on salmon
modern trains have the ability to call
ahead to the next station to stock up on
supplies but not in the age of steam
we're down to our last couple of salmon
and there was no way of communicating
from the flying scotsman or indeed
any train in the period so if you wanted
to get some
more salmon and potatoes or indeed if
something had gone wrong on the train
and you need to get a message out you
had
to write it down rip off the note
and then if you had your handy potato
you can make an incision in the side
fold it up slip it in and as you pass a
signal box
throw it out
that potato has gone to signal box that
signal box will telegraph forward
and when we reach our next stop our
supplies will be waiting for us
[Music]
gooseberry jelly
[Music]
i'm just going to get some cream
[Music]
for the first time in nearly two decades
the flying scotsman is arriving
in edinburgh that was great wasn't it
absolutely the flying scotsman enabling
communication between edinburgh
journey of a lifetime
[Music]
wow we have just gone from london to
edinburgh on the flying scotsman
there's linking up of britain at such
speed i know you start to sort of
really get that sense don't you for
being one country it's the sort of
galvanizing of a nation that the
railways afford us isn't it
not just through the ability to travel
at great speed but also through things
like the telegraph as well as
technological developments
if you don't have the telegraph you
don't have instantaneous messaging
therefore you don't have
news so to speak yeah yeah and then you
get the transportation of all that news
out from the big publishers to every
corner of the country
and then you can write to people about
the news you've read yeah and that goes
on the mail
yeah it's quite amazing we think in our
own lifetime
profound changes that we've seen because
of the digital revolution you know
there's
this internet revolution we can back
project those and we can see all those
same elements
i think so we can really understand what
it must have been like for people to
move
from that sort of pre-railway age and
everything in your life is very
localized
to this sudden slum of connecting up
very global once you've got it you
forget how
you lived without it yeah that's very
true that's very true you see people's
lives change
utterly it's still a remarkable
achievement though getting from london
to edinburgh in the speed we did
today and in the style that we did today
yeah we'll speak for yourself next time
we see how branch lines revolutionize
trade
turning welsh wool into a world-renowned
business
putting scotch whiskey on the map
this is a bit like being on a pogo stick
and making devon britain's biggest
producer of milk
this is the railway milk industry
