Michael Palin's Great Railway Journeys - Confessions Of A Train Spotter 1980

well I suppose it all began when I was a kid really I can remember my dad coming home telling us stories of things he'd seen and then he'd take me to places where I could see these things as well embankments cuttings entrances to tunnels and a bit unusual books and photos passed around at school you know like kids do and then a couple of friends said would I like to try the real thing I said yes from then on well I admit it I was hooked [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I must say I do like railways perhaps not quite as much as I did 25 years ago then my idea of total happiness was to stand on Sheffield Midland Station at the end of a rain-soaked platform with a notebook a pencil a soggy pork pie and a bottle of Tizer I wonder will the journey I'm setting out on today mean as much to me now as it would have done then when to travel the length of Britain by rail was a golden inaccessible dream well we'll see [Music] I'm going to kyle of lochalsh in northwest scotland and I've decided to go all the way by train just because it's still possible I suppose and to find out if there is anything on the train spotter left in me I've got my own spotters book Ian Allen ABC from 1955 every engine has solves leaky underlined Lady Godiva seychelles Howard of Effingham still doesn't get sentimental railways nowadays have to be practical and cost-effective which is why isn't Pancras station of the 1860s looks like this and Euston station of the 1960s looks like this [Music] Houston always reminds me of a giant bath lots of smooth slippery marble and glass surfaces so that people can be sloshed quickly and efficiently around all 65,000 of them daily to 200 destinations from London to the north of Scotland you're not encouraged to linger in the new streamlined Houston that's why there aren't any seats they don't want people sticking to the size of the bar you just check your ticket and off down the plughole there's not much to see down here is the taking the tea rooms and the bars and the bar birds away from the trains and why not what our engines now it is anyway just machines to get you from A to B but I wonder why they still give them names [Music] there's one other reminder of the old-style railway still left at Euston the Manchester Pullman last survivor of luxury travel for first class fare plus a bit more you can still get pampered with waiter service at every table throughout the journey it's definitely the way to travel or if the BBC are paying you can just watch it secure in the knowledge that palms won't be with us for much longer in the age of the Train it's going to be intercity for everyone start of a change one of the great sensations in life it's hard to believe I'll be on railway lines from here to the Isle of Skye [Music] it's a pity they don't call trains like this expresses anymore now at all service on a network but they have tried to keep human touch [Applause] no I just have the coffee please we got to do today restrain chick - she got to Manchester and then back down to Houston again now go back to from lunch s to go back to London last one have to get to the get to the Train coffee's good there's nothing in it along this stretch was set one of British Railways many world records the record for lifting large sums of money out of railway trains in 1963 the night mail was relieved here of two and a quarter million pounds enough for six hundred thousand away days to Brighton [Applause] this was the first big refreshment stop outside London in the days before they put food on trains when they had to serve entire Express falls in ten minutes that move pretty fast to get a sausage roll nowadays [Applause] 100 miles an ANA house we passed the Grand Junction canal built 33 years before they opened this railway it's really no wonder the canal owners hated the railroad they had after all spent rather lot of money on what was rapidly becoming Britain's shortest lived transport revolution but 130 years later the railways themselves had to fight an even bigger threat who needed crowded unpunctual trains when he could drive from London to Birmingham in a couple of hours but now the m1 itself is overcrowded and with the canals undergoing a popular revival and the railways electrified the talks all of an integrated transport system so nobody won [Applause] someone once told me that engine drivers are unofficially instructed to go to full speed whenever they're running alongside a main road my story through a train spotters dream 1941 it was one farmhouse since then crew has built thousands of locomotives and miles of rolling stock and in common with other great railway towns like Darlington and Dhaka stir runs a football team that's almost permanently at the bottom of the fourth division despite the horrors painted by the early opposition to railways with hens ceasing to lay and pregnant women miscarrying and pheasants dying before they could be shot technological progress in the early 19th century was unstoppable 30 miles from Jodrell Bank the world's first regular passenger railway service began on September the 15th 1830 it ran between Liverpool and Manchester and this is a replica of the engine that made it all possible George Stephenson's rocket built in 1829 it started a love affair that's lasted [Music] I suppose true railway buffs love all engines short fat squat long rumbling smelly diesels or swiftly silent electrics but most of all they love steel and the most famous steam engine of them all is flying Scott built in 1923 retired in 1963 and still going strong the first locomotive to 100 miles an hour I really couldn't miss this trip I'm not the only one either she's like an old film star now everything she says is faithfully recorded every inch of her body explored by a fowling lenses is it just a suit like this British Army for any train spotters in Sicily do Belgians go misty-eyed at the thought of seeing the 12:16 to Antwerp do Swedes save up all year for a Hasselblad to photograph a stockholm to Goten burg coltrane breasting a1 in 57 gradient [Music] I think perhaps the root of the love affair lies in the camp this is where the important people traveled bill MacAlpine whose money keeps Flying Scotsman going and beside him in the driver and the fireman recreating the days when physical human effort drove railway trains and these are their fans I've recorded the sound of the locomotive yeah throughout the journey throughout most of the journey yes on the downhill stretches you don't hear very much but you get the best recordings when she's pulling when do you when do you play these dissolute at home and we have evening still your fondant locomotives steaming through the house at all times of the weekend [Music] well I think it's great to be able to trouble on the train line mr. fly-in Scott I'm 71 years of age and they used to this is my only way of traveling in my younger days was traveling on steam trains and I think it's one of the nicest days today he's brought back memories great memories too [Music] oh it's traveling behind steam Flying Scotsman reliving the age of steam of yesteryear reminded me of many journeys of my my youth and days in the Air Force it's a living machine that has a tremendous of structure to make it just like hearing it was seeing it were particularly travelling with them follow them wherever I can as much as the money would allow sight sound and emotion you like the look of the wheels going round and the motion of the driving wheels going around and you also enjoy the sound of it and the size of it going along it's a magnificent feeling and people have love affairs with steam engines have you always been interested in railways throughout your life very nearly there was a short period when I became interested in girls at the usual age and eventually I got married and then I went back to railways again and combined the happily married life with play trains literally thousands of people have turned out today to watch us all playing trains and to stare a little enviously lucky hundreds inside happily watching themselves being stared at Wensleydale cheddar and the even lucky a few at the back of the train who spurned packed lunches in order to say that they've eaten a four-course meal behind Flying Scotsman [Music] what could be nicer than sipping large gin and tonics through the Yorkshire coalfields Joy on their faces when they saw us coming it's true [Music] [Music] Manchester to York in 1980 but the image could be any time in the last 60 years it's an enduring image of England the sort that made the Englishman abroad go misty-eyed in the evenings and reach sadly for the whiskey bottle it's the England of Thomas the Tank Engine and the railway children when the trains were always friendly [Music] so the scotsman having satisfied her faithful audience would get another oscar-winning performance strolls and rather leisurely fashion to a curtain call at you [Music] with its superb curving roof 800 feet long and over a hundred years old York station holds its own with the daunting array of great buildings outside the Norman Cathedral the city wall and the National Railway Museum definitely worth missing a train for not just preserved locos but preserved seats signs posters toys teacups buttons and other bits of the railway Age is that a replica of the crown do you suppose in this particular case Oh indeed this alliance network since the unicorns I wonder who Stevenson was I hope the Americans haven't missed this one over here it's called a Jean Nuria and its sister engine Starbridge lion was exported to the USA in 1829 to be the first steam locomotive ever to run on the American continent the tank or the tender tendon hours so it's great memory to circle it and which type is better for short distance what the time that's correct Maillard still the world's fastest steam locomotive with the help of Sir Nigel Grizzlies streamlining it reached 126 miles an hour in July 1938 the Golden Age of steam is preserved here in aspic perhaps but with care and love and respect not all Britain steam engines were retired quite so gracefully [Music] [Music] there are engines here that I would have waited all day to see when I was a train spotter [Music] [Music] Deltic one of the big Diesel's built to replace steam in 1962 they still go to New York and I could have caught one to Scotland but I wanted to see what railways are like away from the main lines well some of them have been dug up like the one I wanted to travel on now between your configuring the end of steam also meant the end for 5,000 miles of track sacrificed by dr. beaching in order to save the rest of the system but not everyone let their trains go that easily these are the workshops of the North York Moors Railway it's hard to believe what's going on here it's like being in a time warp taking the wheels off this why these being removed well they're getting slightly worn now obviously metal-on-metal wears eventually yeah and they've been taken out to be turned yeah what happens on you know with locomotives like this and restoring say a cab like that where'd you get the spare parts some we make ourselves others we have to buy either as rough castings or as complete unit how much would a locomotive like this cost when it when it comes here we're in it's sort of president of state well this particular one I believe cost about three to four thousand pounds off British Railways and how much once you've got to work on it and all your mob I mean what would it be worth them well once it's in first-class condition it could be worth anything up to eighteen ninety thousand pounds depending on who must avoid yeah and people are buying locomotives for eighteen ninety thousand pounds yes indeed there's one up for sale at the moment for ninety thousand if anybody's interested you do this work it's really dirty and it's very grime in it's fairly messy I mean why do you do it why do you spend so much time with locomotives the enjoyment of it I don't really know why I do it I'm just as it's not about steam engines [Music] thank you very much sir to the end of the line please where's that groom on junction crowmon Junction how single yes please how far is it 18 miles oh don't go near near Edinburgh I'm afraid not okay let's take that [Music] the North York Moors railway was opened by the Duchess of Kent four years after dr. beaton closed it there are 67 other privately owned lines in Britain between them they've saved 300 miles of track and nearly 500 steam locomotives this is also one of the oldest lines in the country engineered by the same man who built rocket george stephenson it's quite a difficult route and Stevenson had to improvise quite ingeniously for instance when it came to carrying the line over marshy ground his solution was to stitch animal skins together fill them with ballast and literally float the line on top it still works and still carries passengers I see in the beginning of the season that the railway station yes sound also the holiday season as well we don't get so many holiday make regularly twice twice ENFP a doing that about 16 really just this railway that controls well we sort of combined a Holiday Inn with the Robin Hood's Bay with the railway as well but we go Trainspotting all around the country during the years well one bonus for me on this line is the sight of my favorite steam engine of all the Stanley a black fires they were the stock-in-trade of my local station in Sheffield unpretentious straightforward and hard-working [Music] this really is a marvelous line and it was very reluctantly that I left it to go back to British Rail reality ah the familiar cry of the lesser spotted D mu D mu is short for diesel multiple units although many of these are operating years beyond the planned lifespan they're the mainstay of British rails running headache the politely termed rural services mind you if we're going to have a national rail network at all then its lines like these that have to be kept alive this is the Esk Valley line running through beautiful countryside from Whitby to Middlesbrough from a seaside town to an important city in the center of a large industrial area its closure was recommended by beaching but it survived there have been plenty of closure scares since up here and these country lines outside the world of the intercity network have never been allowed the luxury of feeling secure approaching battersby junction and here the driver without stopping as to hand in his token it's a safety precaution no one can enter a stretch of single line working unless they've been given the token by the token man or in this case the token woman oh yeah are there any other sort of signal signal ladies really job get-together [Laughter] yes sir napkin I mean I've never never actually operated a signal in my life but have a go yes you catch a train in a minute I've got a man which one which one should I do with me bra passenger really impressive start to major derailment or anything so number one right so what do I do just let this off here and then it was only 20 miles from here that railways were born in 1824 a Quaker businessman believed enough in george stephenson to put up the money for a line to carry coal between Darlington and stockton it opened on the 27th of September 1825 it was the first railway journey ever some of the achievements of that great day still exist like scan bridge which is still carrying trains using the same gauge that Stevenson chose for his railway that day believe it or not even the engine itself can still be seen locomotion dazzled the world at a speed of 8 miles an hour now after 155 years of evolution the engine looks like this the world's fastest diesel express the intercity one to five the high-speed train Flying Scotsman took eight hours from London to Edinburgh the deltac cut this down to six and now the high-speed train can take you from capital to capital in four hours and 37 minutes and it's air-conditioned about engines that seem to come through that was all we had tsking can various sort of permutations but it was well he didn't you see really because he even have the money the money to go [Applause] it's sort of places I'm getting to on this journey and staying in hotel right out over station to me that's the dream you know the movie wasn't trained to sit up in total [Applause] when you pass a place like Durham you realize how much Victorian rail engineers changed everything this famous view of the city wouldn't have been possible before 1869 when the railway viaduct was built high above him tyneside where George Stephenson experimented with his first locomotives a hundred and seventy years later Tyneside could be giving railways a lead again this is the Metro Newcastle's gleaming new local railway system equipped with the very latest in computer controls electronic surveillance vandal-proof stations and sort of one zero to confirm your position another if it all works it could do for local railways what high-speed trains are doing nationally leaving New Castle someone told me there was one stalk of naming the high speed train set as to have a locomotive at either end some wags suggested they should be named after famous couples like David and Goliath or Laurel and Hardy castor and pollux which is fine if they never broke down but with a little juggling in the workshops you might see Laurel and Pollux on the 10 o'clock or Spencer and castor my Jew Goliath and Hardy sounds rather than interesting act [Music] still call it the footplate well they the younger end wouldn't if the vertical at the Cabrio possibly on hills but the old and he's still a populated by some refer to the footplate sometimes become is there a very different sort of spirit to to driving these these HSTs now I mean amongst the men or the magic with firing and the driving of steam engineer famous or a feeling of teamwork and getting it through by your own sort of sweat and muscle Stephen very well yeah you know when these think you just open it from the outside what achieved by Elvis show me under fire with a head with a big heavy player yeah although I kind of play with a buddy late for you now you'll notice as we approach it green lights about 200 yards this side of it you'll hear about modern signalling is more difficult than the old signal but you will take down call for all you can see a green lights totally lighted it being lighted a green light yeah with a semaphore signal yet they all have their own characteristic this time to make your passing zones on this tells you how I see the individual can't remember I can relate that's the place you have to know exactly where they are regarding landmarks no listen see what we could hear smell put off from the outside world but that all sounds as though it's a rather rather dull job now being a being an engine driver it used to be the envy everyone want to be named to drive I mean is it more boring now college I found information session before day when I hear us the brain wanna say you're burning up second off yeah you got a second about it takes two minutes oh really that's the failsafe system that the brakes will go up if you don't correct any of these devices the strain will come to a halt and stop for two minutes now we were speeding up a bit now we're getting into [Music] the east coast main line one of the classic routes along the Northumbrian cliffs up towards barrack and across the border into Scott [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] and so at last to Edinburgh let's have a look in the guidebook shall we Edinburgh the Athens of the north home of burns and Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson princes Street in the Royal Palace of Holyrood nestling beneath the extinct volcano they call arthur's seat as if inspired by the castle above the medon boroughs buildings strive for an impression of grandeur ah this sounds good the railway hotels are amongst the finest often the Caledonian at one end of Princess Street and at the other the noble North British where the weary traveler can get his first taste of the graciousness of this fine city 392 miles from London 262 still to go hmm won't be a high-speed train through the highlands though probably a couple of class of 40 systems I suppose I was lucky to get a bath it's festival time here in Edinburgh and the place is packed I love these railway hotels they reflect confidence on an epic scale nowadays we used to people apologizing for the railways but when this was built in 1903 the big railway companies spent money like water securing the knowledge that they had transport absolutely sewn up the result is corridors big enough for cricket matches stairs wide enough for Busby Berkeley musicals and a Lobby big enough for the Battle of Culloden at this time of year there are 335 people cleaning their teeth every morning at the North British and the trouser pressing service is going berserk everybody wants to be out doing things and seeing the workers worker card which leaves her unemployed [Music] the choice of where to go is almost impossible unless you're a trained spotter of course what kind of a couch please you'll have to change it in Venetian I say I can't go straight through to Cardiff I didn't it wasn't attractive for the scene for information so name four to five in the morning number 70 okay [Music] the biggest show of all is up at the castle the Edinburgh Military Tattoo it's a noisy glittering stirring Scottish spectacular and this year it's not only the men who are in skirt [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] mind you I didn't hear a thing I was having this wonderful dream even in the age of Concorde and moon buggies and micro processors I defy anyone to be unmoved by the fourth railway bridge it was built at the end of the last century if you want to make one for yourself the recipe is fifty four thousand one hundred and sixty tons of steel seven hundred and forty thousand tons of granite forty-eight thousand four hundred cubic yards of stone sixty-four thousand three hundred cubic yards of concrete twenty-one thousand tons of cement and six and a half million rivets and all this was built in an age when the only alternative to railways was a horse and trap [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's only when you're over the fourth bridge that Scotland really seems to begin we're on the Highland line now which goes up through Perth and Beyond and though it goes over the highest summits and the bleakest Moors on British Rail 100 miles of it were built in less than two years Victorian energy and railway Navis [Music] Inverness and 180 miles north of Edinburgh now 700 miles by rail and taxi since I left London and I still haven't seen the word Kyle of all luck house on a railway timetable but Inverness is the last change so I might be in luck [Music] four hours to kill I'm afraid I'm one of those travelers that gets rather twitchy about leaving stations when I know there's a connection in the offing but four hours is four hours and I think it's probably good for a railway Philly act like myself to occasionally tear himself away from trains do a bit of sightseeing buy a souvenir of old Inverness and generally see what normal people do around here [Music] [Applause] [Music] which is what brought me to my first Highland Games I always thought they were huge affairs but this one's quite cozy really it's a local occasion very friendly but they do seem to have 20 or 30 events going on simultaneously which looks a bit dangerous I don't know how many highland dancers get killed by flying hammers in a year or tug of war teams decimated by shot putters or spectators squashed by freshly tossed cavers mind you one of these contestants was especially interesting a caber tossing real women from the kyle of lochalsh line what do you do at station what can the booking-office mean they did with partials and signature disks in my previous things what do you think I mean I'm gonna go see the lime what what do you think of the line itself is a beautiful line very scenic a very busy at this time here [Music] the railway to the kind of luck house in summer a converted 1897 restaurant car served as an observation coach on the right hand side we have the black aisle now the black isle got is known from when the Norseman came over here they stole and plundered before they left everything behind them here devotees of fine landscape can see and courtesy of a special British Rail guide here about the passing delights Beulah got its name where the Mary Queen of Scots stayed here at night and when she awoke in the morning she remarked what a beautiful place coming from the French word Beulah meaning beautiful place so hence its name Beulah it's a grand car map cars as luxurious as this in the States on a train in the States you've never been on a train in the States gene Mackenzie on the other hand has been traveling this line since the year it opened 1897 I went in a very good to a pinch when I'm a famous big Putin - Quinta stroll and I never done - and then a friend left and this when was that how many years ago how old are you now yes only 19 I know slip of a girl [Music] they call this the skyline and it runs through some of the most gloomily beautiful country in the world country which looks and sounds that is out of toki with names like the valley of drizzle and raven rock and the Blackwater [Music] the locks and lonely crags an empty Moors it passes through a thick with legends of giants and beasts and one particularly fearsome witch known in the traders Harry Agnes honestly sesamum British Rail brochure [Music] the last 10 miles to the Kyle which looked so deceptively idyllic took four years to blast out of solid rock there are few lines in old Britain which were as hard one as these [Music] [Music] then quite suddenly were at the end of the line the end of the journey in three hours and 10 minutes we've crossed Scotland from the North Sea to the Atlantic along the station dozens of backpacks rise into the air like a medieval army preparing for battle this is believe it or not kyle of lochalsh and their seven hundred and eighty five and a half railway miles from Houston is the Isle of Skye and now I think I deserve to buy myself a drink what a beautiful place for a hangover it's just so so terribly terribly Scottish [Music] still I suppose I didn't come here just look at the scenery Carl couch last very collected after breakfast it's not that I want to go have an appointment back 10 o'clock now if they ever do a series on great breakfast table views of the world how about this one [Music] I suppose there can't be that many people who come to such a beautiful and remote corner of Northwest Scotland just to keep a business appointment especially on a four-day train journey but there are priceless objects in the kyle of lockout which you can't get anywhere else now then where was it past the post office telephone box on the right and there we are okay yes I've got it all ready for you I don't know quite what do you realize how bigger is that there we are that's fantastic yeah it is a little better than it well we can send it down on the train for is one leaving in about an hour I can put it on there no problem well the thing wasn't wanted to go on the on the other line the Western in life oh yes yeah this one yeah yeah so how do I get to the West ha oh just go over on the ferry to khalaq on and you can get a bus from there to Armour dial then you can get the ferry from armor dial across to Malloy you can pick the train up there down through Fort William to Glasgow no problem so very from Kyle - Skyy so a bus across sky Armidale very armidale - male let's pick up the train at mallaig for Glasgow that's it you got it yeah thanks very much okay then right that's fine thank you bye bye kyle of lochalsh my very own station sign now there's only 4728 left to get you see Trainspotting is all about collecting whether it's numbers or southern region buttons or the sounds of Flying Scotsman it's wanting to have a part of something which is for better or worse in your blood [Music] I've discovered on this journey but my love affair with railways never really did end and I don't suppose it ever world now where are we going five hundred and sixty miles back to used from Fort William their past been nervous over Glenfinnan fire doubts stations [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sam B

Views: 434,720

Rating: 4.8413792 out of 5

Keywords: Michael Palin (Author), Train

Id: mYi1qLUAJJI

Length: 58min 15sec (3495 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

I absolutely love every singe one of Michael Palin's travel documentaries. They are all fantastic.

[u/[deleted]]

Wow. Thanks for posting this. I lived in Kyle of Lochalsh (his destination) in 1980, and the reverse journey - Kyle to London, and beyond is one I was familiar with. Everything in this documentary, from the railways to the everyday details of life at the start of the 1980s, is causing a great deal of nostalgia.

[u/vomiting_words]

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