Some 150 years ago, our Victorian forebears built a railway system
that was the envy of the world.
WHISTLE BLOWS
But one corner of this sceptred isle thwarted
their tenacious, pioneering spirit.
The Highlands of Scotland.
A beautiful,
harsh, unforgiving landscape...
..totally unsuited to the train.
That is, until now.
WHISTLE BLOWS
I'm Dick Strawbridge and I've held a fascination for these tiny
engineering marvels ever since I can remember.
Normally, they're hidden away in the attics and garages
of enthusiasts.
Yeah, there we go. That's the original controller my grandfather
operated the model railway using.
There is the perception that it's a bit of a geeky hobby.
I want to celebrate this world,
bring it out of the garden sheds and into the great outdoors.
We are actually grown ups, don't let us confuse you.
And to do that, I've set myself the challenge of achieving in miniature
what the Victorians could not do...
Is that beautiful or what?
CHEERING
..building a railway line through the Great Glen of Scotland.
It's the engineering feat of it. My kids love train sets.
In their eyes, we're building the biggest model railway
in the world, man.
I'll need an army of railway modellers with expert knowledge.
Look what they've created.
If it goes in the drink, I'll be really cross though.
And the fortitude of Brunel.
You can't film us because we're breaking the law.
To create the biggest little railway...
Inverness, Inverness!
..in the world.
WHISTLE BLOWS
The route I've chosen for the biggest little railway
is the Great Glen Way.
Ben Nevis, up in the cloud, is huge, is dominating.
Here we've got the Caledonian Canal.
First impressions at this end, it's actually very civilised.
There's lots of pathways.
Somehow I don't think it's going to be this easy for very long.
The Victorians attempted to build a railway line
along much of this route.
And it soon becomes clear why ultimately they failed.
My start point is here, Corbach double lock -
the gateway to the Caledonian Canal.
But after just one mile comes the first headache.
The West Coast Railway Line and a busy main road
cut right across the route.
Then comes the steady incline of Neptune's Staircase,
a ladder of rising locks.
The railway will then take on the dense forests around Loch Lochay,
before making two crossings of the canal.
Then it gets hilly.
We're higher than the aeroplanes.
Across the route there is a total of 2km' vertical climb.
Much of it on remote tracks filled with midges, mud and rain,
alongside Loch Ness.
Hello, Nessie, are you down there?
We'll also have to traverse rocky streams, busy town centres,
and dodge traffic before we reach Inverness.
It will be the longest model railway ever built.
Scaled up to size,
the equivalent of travelling halfway across the United States.
OVER SPEAKER: We're sorry to announce that the 0819...
There are, man, years of effort in this hall.
Thankfully, help is just around a OO gauge corner.
Railway modelling is Britain's second most popular hobby.
We owe a large part of that to German toy company Marklin,
creators of the first mass-market runaway sets in the 1890s.
There can't be many youngsters who wouldn't
promise anything to get one for Christmas.
And later, Hornby, their more toy-like British counterparts.
The next problem is keeping Dad away from it.
Exhibitions like this one in Bristol,
where I'm likely to find modellers to help me build my railway.
A layer is never finished.
Buying all the houses and everything,
that just goes on forever.
This is so much more than just tracks and trains.
What about going 70 miles?
You think that's doable?
Erm... They're not very good at going up hills.
The Victorians were going to build a railway along
the same sort of route. They never got there.
Does that tell you something? Kind of a hint there.
LAUGHTER
The track has to be laid perfectly flat.
If there's any undulation, the train will fall off.
I know... I'm not enjoying this conversation, just so you know.
It's really interesting coming into a community like this,
but it's also very worrying.
Hills. The hills they talk about are 3%,
which is actually flat with a little bit of up.
That's not a hill. It's not Scotland.
And I think having built a set-up in your attic over a period of years,
it doesn't give you all the skills we need
to blast across Scotland in a period of days.
I want a hybrid between builders and people who have a love in their
hearts for model roadways.
OVER LOUDSPEAKER: I'm sorry to announce that the 1506...
So I've also put a call out for volunteers
from the full-size railway world.
HORN BLARES
It's very, very ambitious.
What a damn good idea.
In the great tradition of bonkers British ideas.
We need thinkers and doers.
I am asking people to volunteer for two weeks.
A long time for them, but nothing in railway engineering terms,
where projects routinely take years.
And what you're going to be asked to do is going to take you outside your
comfort zone, whatever you do.
What skills? I manage railway projects.
I'm a civil engineer.
Structural engineer. I can use a chainsaw.
I like the problem solving. I like to think I'm a bit of an ideas man.
Quite sort of systematic.
Probably bordering on the obsessive, I'm afraid.
Leader. I think I could do it.
It can get very midgey.
Don't mention it. I'm just practising.
Hi there.
I'm good, thank you. How are you?
56 volunteers have answered my call and come to Inverness -
our railway's final destination.
From here, it is 70 plus miles to the start.
If we're going up that way, it's bloody hilly.
One tool belt each.
It might be miniature,
but like the navvies who built the Victorian Railways,
they'll build it in backbreaking shifts, whatever the weather,
camping alongside the track as it rolls out across the countryside.
This is our midge repellent.
All set up. Yeah, it's pretty roomy.
That's now a spare one I think.
So I don't know whether we've got spare people or whether
we can use that for inviting the girls back.
HE LAUGHS
I didn't say that. I don't want to get in trouble with my wife.
And as it is, she thinks I've just nipped out to B&Q.
We're engineering a small railway.
I don't think anything we've done before from a modelling point of
view is anything like this.
Once we see what our teams are,
and find out how we're going to work together,
we'll try and work with whoever we got.
I've asked the navvies to join me at Corbach double lock,
just outside Fort William.
They look like they're ready to go, don't they?
Where awaiting with two engineering friends of mine,
Adrian Spooner and Claire Barrett.
It's a good job there's a lot of them.
I half expect you to burst into song or something here!
OK, first things first - Adrian Spooner, an old mucker of mine.
A god amongst engineers.
CHEERING
Adrian is responsible for the track laying teams.
He'll make sure we're getting our mileage through.
Then I've got Claire Barrett.
CHEERING
Claire has got the specialist build teams.
We've got to get up high quickly or we've got a big expanse to cross,
Claire's team will be looking after that.
You're going to get a bit to history before we go any further.
150 years ago, our Victorian forebears built a railway system in
this country that was the envy of the world.
But there was one area they were thwarted by - the landscape.
That's why we're here.
We're going to build a railway across a part
of the country the Victorians didn't manage to build.
Scale it up in terms of the real world compared to model railway,
that's half the trans Siberian Railway equivalent.
Put it into context. See this trailer of track?
There's 11 of these.
I'm talking about what we are doing it for.
Claire's going to show you our little beauty here.
INDISTINCT CHATTER We're getting very excited now.
CHEERING
Our engine, Silver Lady, is a fully functioning steam locomotive.
No-one's ever taken one of these over 70 miles cross-country,
no-one's ever done this before.
She runs at an average of 2mph.
I want her to start her journey in three days,
otherwise she won't get to Inverness in the time we've been granted to
leave our track on the ground.
The first team leader I'm going to call forward is Lawrence.
Come on up, mate. I've split the navvies
into four track-laying teams... Come on, Charlie!
..and chosen a volunteer to lead each one.
Paul, come on up, mate.
CHEERING
Go, Jenny.
It's their responsibility to ensure the Biggest Little Railway
leaves on time. Give us a little bit time for a quick briefing,
and then we'll start laying some track.
WHISTLE BLOWS Thank you very much!
Right, we're on. We're starting from here.
The little monument over there, that's our start point.
Are we going to succeed?
Yes!
Yes! We're in it, boys. Easily.
Right, Lawrence. You have one mile of track to lay. Lovely.
And you go up to where it says the start of B.
I don't think it will be easy, but I think we'll do it. We'll do it.
Charlie, you've got .6 of a mile to lay today with your team.
Nice one, thank you. It sounds nice and simple.
Suffice to say,
there's a little bit of an obstacle that you have to get sorted out.
Yeah, I could really get into this, actually.
I do like a bit of dress up.
Paul, you've got 1.2 miles.
I think we still don't really appreciate what we're actually
getting ourselves in for.
Jenny, you're the final stage for the day and that's 1.2 miles.
So between you, we have four miles of track to lay this afternoon.
Listen, the track's going down, mate.
That bit we have in hand.
You're about to be given a list of your team members.
Go and do your roll call, bring them to you,
they are yours, nurture them,
turn them into a mighty fighting force,
and let's start laying some track.
INDISTINCT CHATTER
It's my pleasure to welcome the following people on to team A.
First of all, Amy Elias!
CHEERING
I had the pleasure of knowing Mrs Thatcher.
I could be honest with her, it's about having the ability to listen.
I want to hear not just what the people talking are saying,
but members of my team who are being quiet.
Because they might be the ones who have the best ideas.
Team A, lead by Lawrence,
is responsible for the first mile of track
starting at the mouth of the canal.
Welcome aboard, everybody.
Let's make our way down to the start.
Team B, lead by Charlie,
will start their section up at the one mile point,
and have the tricky bridge and lock section to contend with.
It's scary, but great. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
OK, team C, let's go build a model railway.
Paul and team C have 1.2 miles from the top of Neptune's Staircase and
team D led by Jenny have the flat canal path.
Certainly, there's going to be some wet bits,
there's a canal in the middle,
so at some point do we have to go across there?
This day should be easy compared with the mountains,
and forest to come.
It's rather daunting. There's people out there who are actual more
experienced project managers than me, there's people who are real
engineers, there's people who've been doing model railways for twice
as long as I've been alive.
So to be in charge of a team of people like that is quite something
to face. Let's get on our bus. Whoo!
Good luck. Yeah.
Right, ladies and gentlemen, we have got the honour
of laying the very first piece of track...
THEY CHEER Yeah! Spot on, that.
Each team has been supplied with a pile of track in 3m lengths.
Just lift it out, get it on the ground.
A trailer on which to transport it...
..and a quad bike to tow it along the canal path.
I'm just excited to crack on.
All right, let's go. You want to turn them over
and start getting them close to each other?
Let's have a look and see what we've got.
What we need to do is work out what we think we should do.
And who's going to be doing what.
I think it was Mao Tse Tung that said,
"The greatest journey starts with but a single step."
This railway journey starts with the very first piece of track.
You can really break management down
into one of just three types of manager.
The managers that make it happen,
the managers that watch it happen,
and the managers that wonder what happened.
I always try and be that first kind of manager.
Lawrence is a member of the Model Railway Club in London.
The oldest club of its kind in the world.
It is not quite God, but is the Fat Controller.
He is modelled on one of our members, Reverend Teddy Boston,
who unfortunately is no longer with us.
I didn't know he was going to do that!
I've been interested in model railways since I was probably
about six or seven, when I got my very first tin-plate Hornby railway
for my Christmas present.
So, this is the sound chip that's arrived today.
By adding the chip,
it will sound exactly like the full-sized mainline locomotive.
My father was a very busy man, and I didn't see him a lot.
But getting the train set out was something that we did together.
Ooh-hoo!
HORN BLARES
It takes you back emotionally, as well as mentally.
TRAIN CHUGS Oh, I'm absolutely over the moon.
It's taken an ordinary loco
to something that now has a real personality.
And that's quite special.
Lawrence's models run on double-O gauge track,
too fiddly for the Highlands.
So, the first piece of track goes up against the cone.
Instead, I've opted for a slightly wider track for the BLR,
the Biggest Little Railway,
that gives us a fighting chance over difficult terrain.
The track we're using has been designed by Hadrian,
and consists of a black PVC base with a rubber coating on the rails,
to help Silver Lady gain better traction on the hills.
Happy with that!
I think my father would be proud
that I'm still enthusiastic about it,
and that I'm now trying to take it on to further generations.
Nine metres down.
Only another 115,711.8 metres to go.
All the curved stuff, I'd like to be here for the curved track team,
so let's just unload that.
The track also comes in flexible sections
that can be bent to get around corners.
We can go either way round, but it's better to work out, I think,
in advance, whether we ought to be putting track
in front of the electricity box, or...
It's not electricity? Is it electricity?
Anyone recognise what this box is?
It's a black one. Yeah...
At 29, Paul is the youngest of all the team leaders.
But his love of rail is lifelong.
I first remember Paul being interested in trains
when we were in the guards band.
Paul started sitting in his push chair, going,
"Diddle-um, Diddle-um, train!
"Diddle-um, diddle-um..."
And he was about six months old, then.
I think the skills that I'd bring to the table
are good knowledge of model railways,
and also, the fact that I do work professionally
in the railway industry, and have experience
with working with large teams of people.
Do you enjoy pressure?
I don't know whether I enjoy pressure,
but I can work quite well under pressure.
Unlike the curved track.
OK, prefab team. Prefab team haven't prefabbed anything!
Yes, I'm sorry about that. Let's try again...
Curves are made by pushing the single flexible rails together
in a template to set the angle, then screwing them to one another.
But Team C's template is being troublesome.
That's just snapped everything.
The one on the top doesn't want to go into the little grooves here.
So, as soon as you give it a wallop...
Because one of them's not sitting flush,
it just snaps the plastic off.
The only other thing we could potentially do is freestyle it.
Seems there's too much chance of us ending up with something
that the train's going to fall off.
Well, why don't we, let's just try it? OK, yeah, can you...?
Shall we just try one now? Yeah.
Fingers out the way. DRILL WHIRS
I don't know whether we're going to get all our track laid today
that we're supposed to, but I really hope that we do.
This is day one, it's chaos.
Look, right now, I need to head down and see what's going on
at the lay by, so I'm going to head in that direction.
You can follow me, if you like!
Struggling with curves at this early stage is a worry.
Between here and Inverness, we'll need to make thousands of curves.
And a equipment failings are not confined to Team C.
Is everything off yet?
There's a petrol line on the engine that's come apart.
So, it's actually leaking petrol in there over the engine,
so it's not a fire risk.
We've parted the pair, so that if we do have a fire,
we're not going to end up actually losing everything.
All right, we need to start clipping.
Let's just bang the track down.
But Team B's section is the greatest concern.
I've come to size it up with Hadrian.
Whoa, whoa!
That is tight there.
The mainline railway comes to Fort William.
It runs north to south along the West Coast,
and this railway bridge cuts across the BLR's path
at the one mile point.
There's also a road bridge right next to it,
and there's no room underneath for the canal path.
What about using the water?
When just using a... You mean, boat? Yeah, run a boat.
They use ferries for moving locomotives.
So, why not make a ferry?
Make a ferry?
Train ferries were pioneered by the Victorians,
and remain in use all over the world.
The first train ferry, Leviathan, entered service in 1850,
crossing the Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh.
The ferry and floating piers allowing trains on and off
were designed by an ambitious 30-year-old bridge engineer
called Thomas Bouch.
We need a more Lilliputian solution.
I can provide a model boat to act as the ferry.
Building the mechanism to get the train on and off
is the responsibility of Charlie and his team.
Get me into the water, there will be a boat with a track on it.
Yeah. I'll take responsibility for getting it to the first lock.
We can fill that lock up with water,
I can get you to about two feet from the top of the wall.
Right. So, I need a way of getting the train onto dry land.
I'm loving his face here, by the way.
That's the easy end.
Because we've got a pontoon already there.
Yes. And that's quite low to the water, isn't it?
That's quite good. Yeah. OK, talk about the hard end.
There.
Water? I said I'd fill the lock up for you.
Come on, I'm doing my best here.
And by the way, that's the noise that's going to be made
if the actual train goes in.
Cheers, mate.
So, here we are, Broke Brick Mountain!
This is just part of it, this is what I call Half Brick Mountain.
Charlie is a relative latecomer to the world of model railways.
We bought him a model railway for his birthday, and he didn't want it.
I was very annoyed, I thought, she's trying to make me look an idiot!
And then my son and I got it out and were playing with
in the garden one day, and that's when Charlie started.
I've been building it for 15 years now,
ever since I gave up going to the pub he given up cigarettes.
I have built the biggest exhibition railway in this country, anyway.
Now, I want to build the biggest one in the world.
Not everyone on Charlie's team thinks the pontoon they've chosen
is a good place for the ferry to launch.
I do a lot of canoeing at home, and loading onto a canoe,
I know that the crosswind that could lose an engine in,
water deep enough for a barge.
My idea was having it low on the rocks,
so that the remote control boat can still come up to it.
But there is stability underneath it.
What's the trouble? The dock you're using isn't at all stable.
And then we've got... Until we see the boat,
we don't know exactly how we're going to get it onto a boat.
If it doesn't work, we'll have to come back and do it a different way.
But we don't know until the boat turns up... Yeah.
We're stuck. But we've got to do something.
Yeah. So, let's get on and do it, please.
Join underneath? Yeah, and then you can...
12 individuals trying to do their own thing, it won't work.
And I'm the mug who's got to tell them yes or no.
Charlie's team have a long afternoon's work ahead of them.
But along the length of the route,
there are many far larger engineering challenges
lying in wait.
I think the train is actually going to run down here.
This is the narrowest point.
It's 16 metres... Jeez!
Edge to edge. Claire has come to the first of these.
Laggan Locks.
The railway will be here in three days,
but that's as far as it'll go
if we can't build our way to the other side.
Boats are coming in and out here, there is no timetable,
it's whenever they turn up.
Because the lock gates are in constant use,
we can't lay our track on them.
So, we have to build our own bridge that will not disrupt the boats.
However we make it, it's got to be able to go out and back in without
causing too many stresses on it,
just so that boats can get in and out.
The team have their own truck full of tools,
and the help of Hadrian's right-hand man, Alex.
Just as well take your vests off, I think, lads?
Getting a bit warm?
So, the truss bridge is just basically,
you can have an over-truss... Something like that?
I was an engineer in the Royal Air Force.
I've been in the deserts seven times in the last 15 years.
You're turning up on bare ground,
and you've got to build your own city yourself.
And the degree of luxury is dependent
on the degree of effort that you're prepared to put into it.
To truss that up, we do it that way.
Derek is proposing the team builds a truss bridge.
Like that.
Pioneered by the Victorians,
some of the finest truss bridges in the world
are to be found near here in Scotland.
Like the 2.75-mile Tay Bridge near Dundee.
Built in 1879 by the very same Thomas Bouch,
it was at the time, the longest bridge in the world.
The triangular arrangement of vertical trusses
distributed the load of the train across the bridge's length.
Horizontal trusses stopped it from twisting
with the motion of the loco.
If the spans are too long, truss bridges will sag.
Bouch got around this by sinking caissons into the riverbed.
A luxury we don't have because of the busy shipping lane.
Are you enjoying yourself? I'm loving this, yeah.
I think this is great!
I'm doing what I like doing, building stuff.
There's a lot of people that'll have train sets,
but they won't admit it because they don't think it's a manly pursuit.
But what they've got to remember,
everything that we come across today,
from the fastest cars to the fastest aeroplanes started somewhere,
with somebody with an idea that becomes a model
and gets built in a factory,
and actually goes into the sky or onto the road.
It all starts with modelling.
What's actually happening is that the inside wheel
is actually slipping into that...
Quad bike! There is a stigma.
All we've had for years is people saying,
"You're anoraks, right?"
Yeah, there is a perception nowadays that it is a bit of a geeky hobby.
There are one or two other modellers in my office,
but they tended to keep it very low-key, keep it very quiet.
You know, it kind of takes one to say,
"My name's Malcolm, I'm into model railways!"
I've worked with a bloke for 14 months,
and something happens after all that time, and it's like,
"Oh, yeah, I really like model trains."
And you're like, "Yeah, I like model trains too."
I like the order. It's got to stop at that station for a few minutes,
so that the little people can get on and off.
It is your little world that you control every aspect of.
Maybe that says more about me than model railways, I don't know.
There's rivet counters, there's nothing wrong with that,
I count rivets myself. That's too far for me.
It's a broad church of a hobby in that respect, isn't it?
You are what you are. There's no point in lying.
So, the start line is...
..200 metres in that direction.
It's 5pm.
We've eased the track teams in gently.
And they should be nearly finished.
Oh?
I didn't expect to see you chaps here.
I expected to see you way up there.
What's happening?
Er... It's taking us longer to get the mating between
curved and straight sections. That joint there.
Yeah. In places, we've got tight gauge to wide gauge.
So, so, tight gauge to wide gauge,
is one gauge.
My little train is over three kilos.
And so a bit of a wobble on that...
Yeah, we might need to put feet into places.
Yeah, yeah. Right.
Looking down there and it's not like this, it's like that.
And therein could be a problem.
A mile up ahead, Charlie's team are working on their boat lift.
Let's get everyone together and have something,
some bloody clarity here, all right?
Because I'm sick of hearing so many variables.
And Haydren's come along to check on their progress.
I would have a device which the vessel went into.
And then you picked the whole vessel up and then you sat it down.
And then your train can drive on, or drive off.
Charlie and his team need to make a platform
that the train ferry can sit upon, and a derrick,
a type of crane that uses guy ropes to lift the whole thing
into and out of the water.
Now, I don't know how many of you think that that's simple,
but I certainly do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You should've done this two-and-a-half hours ago,
so that we could've come up here knowing what we were doing
rather than guessing, but I'll go and lay some more track.
Those guys have flown up there, putting the track easy.
You know, straight, straight, straight.
It's a very easy thing. But
they've come across the issue where they've got to make the boat lift.
It's almost like knitting fog, you know?
It's like, "I don't know what to do!"
Then they're arguing amongst themselves
and it's all the things you shouldn't be doing.
There's definitely a bit of tension. People getting to know each other,
getting to know each other's working style.
We've had a blissful harmony up this end.
Have you?! Yes! It's been perfect!
You should've been down here.
It's been a laugh and a half! Oh, really?
Whoa! That's going to be awfully swingy!
We have to make progress, we have to take things on.
We have got people who are used to perfection.
And getting things exactly right.
I brought this, to mimic the weight of the train.
But with 70 plus miles of track to lay,
we have to just get solutions that are good enough and do work.
I'll take it, no problem. It will.
They should be chomping at the bit to get finished
and get back to the campsite and be proper navvies, have a skinful.
I am a bit worried.
You've got the oscillation of the cylinders
from what is a two-cylinder loco.
Instead of going for the perfect design,
give me an 80% perfect design in 20% of the time.
That's it. OK?
It might not result in the perfection
the modellers are used to,
but just good enough is good enough to get Silver Lady to Inverness.
Time to check in with Team C.
Right, OK, how are we doing?
We have, I believe, about half a mile of track still to lay.
We've also been really struggling getting the curved track assembled,
so we have, so far, one 45 degree curve.
That's in total? In total, and we need 16 45 degrees curves,
plus four 90 degrees curves assembled.
And there's another problem.
A whole section of Paul's track has not been joined up.
This is bordering on the ridiculous.
Just like a full-sized railway,
we should be using fish plate or joint bars
to connect the rails together. HE WHISTLES
You've probably got about 300 bits of track just sitting out
waiting to be joined. Grab yourself a handful each, and I mean,
take about ten or 20, OK?
Make sure you've got plenty, all right.
There's a big hole without any connectors in it.
It's connected. It's not connected, trust me.
Why don't we just take the box? Yes.
Get them in there and start connecting
as quickly as you can so we get finished.
As the sun starts to set,
some of the navvies are beginning to get the idea.
I've had enough now, if I'm honest, but we've got to get it finished.
It's the engineering feat of it.
My kids love trains.
Do you know what I mean? In their eyes,
building the biggest model railway in the world, man?
Come on. I am, like, hero status.
They already love me, but you just go at that peg, don't you?
Do you miss them? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.
TEARFULLY: I've never been... HE CLEARS THROAT
Man of pride, come on. It's just the sort of thought of the whole two
weeks away from them, just... Yeah, it breaks my little heart.
Yes!
Team A have joined our track to that of Team B.
CHEERING
They were a bit knackered. How much did the teams actually lay?
A was one.
Team A have given us a solid first mile of track.
Team B have laid another .6 of a mile up to and after the loch.
I'm not sure about the derrick, but fingers crossed.
Jenny, she didn't get her 1.2 done, but what they had,
they got down on the ground, yeah?
Teams C and D have struggled,
and it means we have broken sections of track spread over two miles.
We're already behind, and the terrain only gets tougher from here.
Now we've got the midges as well.
Crazy.
RADIO: Today mainly cloudy,
outbreaks of rain today. Brighter, drier conditions...
It's 7:30am in the Highlands.
We're alternating between bacon,
sausage and egg, and egg and bacon,
and sausage, bacon and egg.
We've been told life jackets
and high vis, which suggests... Anything.
Jenny's team quickly fills in the gaps left from yesterday.
CHEERING
And the bridge at Laggan Locks is taking shape.
That is the joy of the truss, isn't it?
It has all of the structural stability
but none of the self-weight to support.
Shouldn't you be using a golden spike for that?
Now, traditionally, where two railway crews
met from opposite ends...
..the chairman of the railway company
would traditionally drive a golden spike
down to hold the rail onto the sleepers.
We haven't got a golden spike,
so we're using exactly the same fish plates as normal.
CHEERING But we have joined up!
Dare I say it? They're turning into proper navvies!
ALL SING CHEERFULLY
THEY SING "500 MILES"
THUNDER RUMBLES
That is coming straight to us.
Yep.
And the rain's coming down now, isn't it? I didn't expect that.
Well, it is Scotland in the summer.
It's going to be wetter than an otter's pocket.
RADIO CRACKLES
Are we getting interference on something?
It remains to be seen whether we'll get joined up,
where the straights can be joined together
in a continuous ribbon from... Wheee!
Brunel would have a fit if he saw this.
Oh, well. What he doesn't know won't hurt him.
After three days, we have 16 miles of track on the ground.
In scale terms, that's over 300 miles.
RADIO CRACKLES
I'm going to say, two, six, lift, and on lift,
everybody lifts straightaway.
Can you say that in less military terms so I understand?
When I say two, six, lift...
Yeah? You lift on the lift.
OK. Two, six, lift.
Oh, it's heavy.
And the truss bridge is finished and ready to be tested.
Hang on... Where are we going?
We're not over yet. It's pretty windy.
It is a bit. That's why we've got the wind meter.
The wind's a major factor in bridge design,
and it's important to know that this one can cope with the elements.
Move it round. Pivot!
Taking the strain on the rope.
That is more than 8mm deflection there, with the wind.
All beams can deflect or bend to some extent...
Look at that.
..before they reach breaking point...
Bridge forward.
Halt.
..as the pioneering engineer Thomas Bouch learned to his costs.
After Queen Victoria travelled across his Tay Bridge in 1879,
Bouch was knighted.
Six months later, a passenger train was crossing it in a gale.
As it reached the raised midsection...
..the bridge gave way...
..killing all 60 people known to be on board.
The subsequent public enquiry revealed that Bouch
had made no allowance for wind-loading on the bridge.
And that durability had been sacrificed to save money.
Bouch died within the year, his reputation ruined.
His caissons remain next to the rebuilt Tay Bridge.
A silent warning from the Victorian age.
All right, be careful. That's slippy, now, that floor.
Yeah.
That'll do.
I'm chuffed.
Look at it.
Take a picture now. That's all right, isn't it? What a beauty.
We'll know we have done a good job if we now can recover that
without splashing it. It will be brilliant.
Yeah. Two, six, lift.
They're brilliant, aren't they?
If it goes in the drink, I will be really cross, though.
It's in the water.
Lower it into the water,
put it alongside the jetty, and pull it out.
It's gone.
Look, it's gone.
It's gone again. It's under too much tension.
It's splitting up. Go.
Get it down. Oh... Down, down, down. Oh, oh, oh.
What's happening today? The train's running.
Oh, yes. The train's running today.
Right, so everybody's happy today! Go on, make me a railway!
I'm going to try and catch you today with a train, OK?
Take care, thank you very much! Bye!
They're all happy, isn't they? It's brilliant! They are, they are.
Smiles all around! Even from Paul!
It's like Christmas morning, isn't it?
Model railway in a box.
The reason Paul is smiling is probably this.
These are the carriages which are going to be running on the railway.
It's a really good effort. What I'm concerned about is,
are they going to be able to stand up to the rain?
People who are not involved in modelling
cannot appreciate, actually, how therapeutic it is.
But when this locomotive runs along for 72 miles,
you're going to have a lot of members of the public that hopefully
are going to get some pleasure out of it.
They're going to think we are a load of crazy bananas!
But I would like to think that at the end of the day,
there might be a bit of a cheer
as the locomotive passes along the line.
It's departure day for the volunteers as well.
As the BLR grows, they're breaking camp and moving with it.
Two things I love most in the world are playing with trains
and playing with tents.
Sorry, just going to get plugged in without doing anything decent.
Just as the navvies did
when they built the railways in the 1800s.
Left, left, left, left, left!
Stop!
When the navvies were building the railways,
they would have complete collapsible towns that would travel with them.
You had shops, barbers, little collapsible churches, bars,
and I'm afraid brothels as well.
It was a complete collapsible town
that travelled along with the workers as they built,
first the canals and then the railways.
I can understand the need for a brothel after doing all this here.
I've headed back to Corpach. It's nearly time to start.
Ian, good to see you, sir! How are you doing? Fine, thank you.
What do you got for me?
I've got a model of Fort William Station as it was in 1975.
Well, we have to give the train a proper send-off.
You can see our tracks laid here.
Down we go.
Excellent. On that little black line, you go to Inverness.
It's a long way. Do you think?
The service to Inverness will leave this station at 12 noon...
..and travel four miles to our first scheduled stop, Muirshearlich.
Right, advance train team!
The train's not very far away, we have got Fort William in the '70s
ready for us. I need to know the track ahead is ready for the train.
In the real world, railway track is stabilised by tamper wagons
packing ballast under the sleepers.
We'll rely on the advance train team and their trolley of tools
to fix up any damage or wobbly track,
just before Silver Lady comes through.
The train journey now is in your hands.
We just need to make sure that when the train starts rolling,
we give it every chance.
One volunteer to stay behind with me.
Who knows the Silver Lady the best?
Gary, you're a volunteer. You nearly moved there.
We're going to keep you here for the first bit,
and then we're going to rotate through.
I want people to get to know the train so we get the knowledge
and pass it through to all the teams, OK?
Way to go, team! Hey, and mind my track!
Whoops! And your hat. And my hat.
We're just going to fill the boiler with the syringe.
I've been joined by Chris Lee, an engineer from Roundhouse,
the company who made Silver Lady.
We're looking to remove 30 mL.
30 mL out. That gives you your air gap at the top. Yep.
Silver Lady is a genuine steam engine,
powered by gas rather than coal, and just littler.
The gas is burnt inside a flue tube,
running through the core of a boiler.
This produces pressurised steam...
..which is forced down a cylinder to move a piston.
This moves the connecting rod, which turns the drive wheels.
You've got the gas tank and the gas regulator.
How far is one fill going to get me? Let's just see how we get on.
We're looking at gradients well over and above what we would recommend.
So this, this is a challenge!
Support your loco...
Silver Lady must be refuelled and serviced every 20 to 30 minutes.
There we go. And that's gas.
With that factored in, she should average eight or so miles per day,
meaning we'll arrive in Inverness by mid-afternoon in nine days' time.
Wheel bearings, pretty much anything that moves.
Watching Chris give the engine so much attention,
I'm beginning to realise that we're asking an awful lot
of this tiny loco.
Last job, my magic lighter.
This is what I'm after!
The team's right there.
We're going to have a good 20 miles ahead of us of track,
which is a phenomenal thing to think about.
20 miles of track. Crazy.
It is crazy. Crazy idea!
We can't believe it!
You're laying the track all the way through Inverness?
We keep looking back, just to see if we see a puff of smoke,
that it's coming.
And we're racing ahead just to make sure everything is all OK.
All right, we have steam.
Move the stick to your left.
It's just going to pop it into forward gear.
All your driving is done on your regulator.
Are you ready to go to Inverness? I'm ready.
We're ready. 70 plus miles, here we go! Here we go!
Oh, my goodness! I'm being very, very gentle here.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa! Steady!
We're going 70 miles!
Inverness, here we come!
Think you can go a little bit faster?
A bit faster? A little bit faster.
That was a little gap. We've just flown over that.
We are now travelling faster than they can lay tracks!
That is our track, boys and girls!
There's a sight to see!
Oh, my God, it's the train!
Actually, that's quite a nice carriage, isn't it?
Oh, that is fantastic! I'm so proud!
Yeah! It's actually going pretty fast! It will do.
I love it, just so you know.
All the work is paying off. We're on our way!
Come on, darling.
You never know how good your track is until the train's gone along it.
Want to see it at the first curve. Yeah, where is the first curve?
Welcome to our first bend.
Corner coming up. Nice and steady.
No. Oh!
You know you've got no expansion joints?
Next time, Paul's woes continue...
This team are Team British Rail.
..Silver Lady goes sailing.
Come on... We're adrift.
There's no control.
..and the canal claims its first victim.
One bike has gone in the canal.
Can we get that in the water, please?
We need to get it in the water!
Subtitles by Red Bee Media