The Victorians might have known a thing or two about railway construction, but even they knew when they were beaten.
Britain was the envy of the world when our finest engineers built perhaps the best railway system ever seen, 150 years ago.
They only went so far though. When they reached certain parts of the Scottish Highlands they had to stop, defeated by the terrain.
How wonderful to hear, then, of an epic project to finish what the Victorians started, with the finest engineering brains in modern Britain designing and building a railway from Fort William to Inverness along the Great Glen Way – a distance of 74 miles – that even Brunel would be proud of.
Presenter Dick Strawbridge with engineer Claire Barratt part of the team attempting to build a model train track 74 miles long
Well, this unlikely scenario has already happened. The ambitious building programme started back in the summer and the steam engine, Silver Lady, wound her way through woods, across rivers, even up mountains, following a path many thought impossible for a railway.
So why have you not heard of this epic undertaking? Because the railway was built in miniature by a team of model-railway enthusiasts. And it was so small you could trip over it.
Yes, the type of people who normally squirrel themselves away in sheds and lofts were marshalled into a veritable army for a TV show. What was the purpose? ‘To prove it could be done,’ says TV presenter Dick Strawbridge, who took on the role of the Fat Controller.
‘Oh, it was quite mad,’ says Dick, himself a model-railway enthusiast. ‘It was done in the best bonkers British tradition.
The building of the track from Fort William to Inverness along the Great Glen Way is captured in a five-part Channel 4 series
‘But in another way it’s deadly serious. The railways mean a lot to the British, and model railways might be a hidden hobby – a lot of people don’t admit to doing it – but it’s the second most popular hobby in Britain. We know the Victorians wanted to do this, so this was our way of finishing it off for them.’
The resulting five-part Channel 4 series is slightly surreal, but stirring with it. It’s charmingly eccentric and, as Dick says, ‘about as British as you can get’.
The project took months of planning and included real railway engineers as well as avid model-railway enthusiasts.
‘While we needed the best modellers we could get, they aren’t, as a rule, used to working outside in the hostile environment we had to deal with – hills, water, endless rain, midges. But they were brilliant. They rose to the challenge,’ says Dick.
Following public appeals for help – with the tantalising prospect of breaking the world record for the longest model railway ever built – volunteers started to sign up. ‘Some were geeks, some were really sharp professionals, some were outward-bound types,’ says Dick. ‘We had men and women – it’s a myth that women don’t work in the railway industry.’
Where do you start building the biggest little railway in the world? Well, in Corpach on the west coast of Scotland. This is where the team of 56 volunteers assembled to be designated their stretch of track. How was it laid?
‘By people getting down on their hands and knees,’ says Dick. It was a painstaking process – and a worrying one, given the proximity of peaks like Ben Nevis. Model railway tracks aren’t designed to go up hills.
‘At any slight undulation the train will fall off,’ says Dick. ‘In modelling terms a hill is an incline of 3 per cent. In Scotland that’s not a hill. It’s flat with a bit of up.’ Yet this route included some terrifying climbs, with Dick equating one to his little engine ‘climbing one and a half Everests’.
How was this possible? ‘We didn’t know it would be. At one stage we did wonder if the show would be about how you deal with glorious failure.’
Watching the first episode there are some hairy moments. The team have to build a bridge across a canal to allow the train to cross the water. It’s nail-biting, waiting for the inevitable crash as the construction falls into the water. And yes, it happens.
Does the engine itself leave the tracks at any stage? Why yes. Within two minutes of starting it’s derailed. How many times did this happen during the 74-mile journey?
‘I couldn’t possibly say,’ says Dick, with a smile that suggests he couldn’t possibly count. We can reveal, however, that the world record was beaten. Even Dick seems astonished at how much was achieved by the little engine.
‘How did we keep Silver Lady going? At some stages we willed her along the tracks,’ he laughs. So is she in retirement now? ‘Yes, but she might be brought out again if we have another plan up our sleeve,’ Dick says. ‘Watch this space.’
The Biggest Little Railway In The World, tomorrow, 8pm, Channel 4.