Original subtitles

Join us on a wonderfuljourney through the south-west of England.

Recapturing the bygone era of luxury train travel...

Happy days. Happy day$_

...and reliving the charm of steam...

...on a route with views of the most stunning coastline

that also suffered devastating destruction.

We had no trains for two whole months.

A journey full of wonders and inspiration.

I've been boating to and from the islands

since I was about nine or ten.

We meet the people who work and live along this special line...

We've got it down to a fine art.

...before we arrive at our destination

on the River Dart.

This is no ordinary railway journey.

This is one of the most scenic railway journeys in the world,

Devon and Cornwall.

Our journey is all about reliving the romanticism of the golden age

of luxury train travel and enjoying the scenic delights

of the south-west of England.

But, first, we need to get there.

Our starting point is, surprisingly, in the north,

near where our train is based, in the city of York.

We're embarking on a very special two-day trip

along the English Riviera,

travelling on this beautiful vintage train, The Statesman.

It's nearly 6am and our train is ready to depart.

Service manager James is making sure everyone is on board.

Good morning, welcome to York station.

We're just about to depart and head all the way down to Penzance.

Our home for the next two clays are these exquisite Pullman carriages.

In charge of dining operations is Sandra.

So a nice, bright, early start from York this morning.

We've seen the day come to life,

now we'll serve breakfast en route until we start

picking up the nice scenery beyond Exeter.

Our journey will take us from the north down to the tip of Cornwall.

From York, we're heading south to Exeter,

where our south-western adventure begins.

We'll travel to Dawlish along the Devon Riviera

before cutting inland, past Dartmoor,

to reach Plymouth and the Great Royal Albert Bridge.

As we cross the River Tamar,

we enter Cornwall and pass St Germans

and travel through the Cornish countryside

to overnight in Penzance.

The following day, we'll travel back north to Paignton.

Here, we'lljoin the Dartmouth Steam Railway

for a special trip to Kingswear, by the River Dart.

Throughout the year, The Statesman travels

to a number of Britain's best-loved destinations.

Perfect for a special occasion.

It's a lovely way to travel around the country

and see wonderful scenery in a relaxing environment.

Jessica and Keith are celebrating their 38th wedding anniversary.

It was a good opportunity to celebrate in style.

It's time to sit back and, for the next 250 miles,

enjoy the exquisite onboard service.

You're very welcome.

Steward Jo is putting the finishing touches

to the mise en place.

It's all about the finer detail, even the napkins are well-dressed.

Each customer gets their own dinner jacket.

It's one of my favourite ones, this, I love making these.

We got lots of really nice compliments about the napkin folds,

sometimes, with the guests, they'll ask us, "How did you do that?"

And we'll sort of give them a little masterclass.

Everything is freshly prepared on board.

The kitchen might be small,

but, for head chef Nick and sous chef Nina,

that is not the only challenge.

One of the hardest things is having to deal with boiling water.

Any liquids, really, because a lot of the tracks that we go on

have got a camber, so it slops around a lot.

So you have to be very wary of that.

And the space that we're working in,

you know, you have to be quite organised and logistical.

We stick to our areas of the kitchen,

so there's not a lot of crossover.

We're not clambering over each other.

We've got it down to a fine art.

It's, like, 34 years I've been working in kitchens

and, um, this is the first time I've ever worked in a moving one.

Strike that off my bucket list now.

After a relaxing seven hours,

Exeter is behind us and we are heading

for Dawlish on the Devon coast.

Skirting the edge of the sea, this is one of the most scenic parts

of the train journey to Penzance.

But with the tracks so close to the water,

this stretch is particularly vulnerable

to the Great British weather.

On the 5th of February 2014, after a night of heavy storms,

a section of the seawall collapsed,

leaving part of the railway line hanging in mid-air.

With the town's coastline devastated,

people living on the seafront had to be evacuated from their homes.

In the aftermath of the storm,

the community came together to clean up the damage.

The Friends of Dawlish Station are a group of dedicated volunteers

who took it upon themselves to restore their battered station.

The chair of this community project is Margaret.

The whole town was different.

We had no trains, no sound of the trains coming through at all

for two whole months.

This town was quiet.

And it was at that point where The Friends of Dawlish

started looking after the station and making it really welcoming

and beautiful again following that great storm.

The station is located right next to the sea.

When we get the stormy weather here, the waves come over that roof

and the waves hit this platform that we're standing on here.

That's how stormy it gets in Dawlish.

We've got photographs and pictures of the water

up to the level of the platform.

So those drains there, normally, they would let the water flow away.

But, in 2014, it was so ferocious, the storm, that they couldn't cope.

And the whole of this was just flooded.

It was like a canal.

Work to repair the damage started immediately.

They worked 24/7 for two months and we called them the Orange Army.

They got the line up and running in eight weeks.

Given the devastation,

it was unbelievable what they did in such a short space of time.

300 rail staff and contractors

worked to replace the seawall and track,

using 6,000 tons of concrete and 150 tons of steel.

In 2019, an even bigger seawall was built,

which will protect the town against any future storms.

So this is our new seawall.

As you can see, we've got the lip now that curls over

and the idea is that the waves will come in, flip up the wall

and then go back out to sea, rather than over the wall

and onto the railway line.

And we'll find out this winter,

when we get the first storms coming in.

Back on our train,

the guests are not just enjoying the stunning views,

it's also lunchtime.

The menus are inspired by the places along the route.

Today's lunch includes a Cornish fish cake and an unusual dessert.

This trip in particular, we've got an item on, the dessert,

called a figgy 'obbin,

which is an old-fashioned traditional Cornish pudding.

It's an old Victorian sweet item from Cornwall.

Out in the dining car, there are no complaints

about these nostalgic morsels of delights.

To sit in perfect comfort whilst you're actually

enjoying the British countryside.

What more could you want?

Happy anniversary. Here's to life.

Cheers.

As the guests relax after lunch, they'll soon be treated

to one of Britain's greatest railway masterpieces,

the Royal Albert Bridge.

We are on a scenic railway journey through the south-west of England.

Riding through the gorgeous Devon countryside

to Penzance, in Cornwall.

Our train is no ordinary train.

We're travelling on the beautiful Statesman...

...pulled by an equally vintage locomotive,

a Class D47, an old diesel-electric classic.

Message received and understood. Right away on the signal.

At the controls today is train driver, John.

We're on a Class 47, number 593,

one of our heritage British Rail Large Logo liveried machines.

So built in the '60s, still lasting today,

thanks to our professional engineering team the LSL at Crewe,

that keeps our six locos all in operational running condition.

So quite a vintage train we've got.

It's special to drive because there's not anything

like this on the main line anymore.

It's definitely like driving an Aston Martin.

Perhaps not as powerful as an Aston Martin,

but, yes, like driving that.

We'll travel along the outskirts of Dartmoor National Park bound

for Plymouth, where we'll cross over into Cornwall.

From there, it's onward through St Germans,

past Truro and St Erth,

before arriving in Penzance.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

we are now arriving into Plymouth.

If you wish to stretch your legs for 15 minutes, please do so,

but if you can listen out for the whistle, ready for our departure.

After a quick pit stop, it's time to board.

No one wants to miss one of the great highlights of this journey,

the link from Devon into Cornwall...

...the Royal Albert Bridge.

We'lljust put the brake in now,

as it's got a low speed of 15mph over the bridge.

The passengers love the bridge.

It's very high up, there's lovely views of the estuary.

As you go along, the structure of it passes the window.

You just remember it, it's just amazing.

The iconic bridge over the River Tamar was designed and built

by one of Britain's greatest engineers,

lsambard Kingdom Brunel.

To tell us more about the bridge, and Brunel himself, is Craig,

who's worked as a signalman in this area for over 30 years.

It really is an engineering masterpiece.

And, at this level, we can really get a perspective of the challenge

that faced Brunel in the 1850s.

Brunel's original idea was to have masonry piers

with a wooden trestle top across the entire river.

But, however, the Admiralty had other ideas.

They insisted on a hundred-foot-high structure and wide berth

to get their shipping through.

The upshot was to come up with this structure,

the semi-suspension bridge.

Lots of issues here for Brunel,

including the river being 75 feet deep at this particular location

and also the fact that the suitable bedrock to start the building

was a further 20 feet below that.

This is actually the narrowest part of the river,

but, even so, the whole structure, end to end,

is way over 2,000 feet in length.

Construction started in 1854.

It wasn't until three years later the first truss was raised

at a rate of six feet a week using hydraulic jacks.

The challenge can't be underestimated

with the technology that was around in 1850, and it remains

an incredible testament to his design and ingenuity.

And it's still here being used day in, day out

for exactly the same purpose it was built for.

Sadly, the Royal Albert Bridge was one of Brunel's final challenges.

By the time the bridge opened in May 1859,

he was gravely ill.

Brunel died of a stroke on the 15th of September 1859.

He was only 53.

But his legacy will live on forever.

Without the bridge behind me, there would be no railway

into Cornwall and all those hundreds and thousands of journeys,

from the days of steam right through diesel to the current day trains,

all of which have been bestowed with this man's name.

The railway is mightily proud of the work that this man has done.

I live at the really far end of Cornwall.

I went to university up in Manchester,

which was a long way away,

and when I got back to Brunel's bridge,

I knew I was nearly home again.

On the other side of the bridge lies Saltash,

the first town on Cornish soil.

A couple of miles later, we cross another picturesque river,

the Tiddy, to reach St Germans.

This small village has an unassuming train station,

but it hides a wonderful secret for train lovers.

Lizzie and Dave bought the old station house 28 years ago

and, when they stumbled across a siding in their garden,

they had an idea.

We excavated and found some rails in the, uh...

buried in the siding and then we thought, it'd be quite nice

to have a railway carriage there. We did, yeah. As you do.

So we started a hunt, didn't we?

We were looking for a railway carriage

and we thought it'd be nice to have somewhere to put our friends,

because we didn't have a guest bedroom.

What started as a quirky hobby became a thriving business.

The train-loving couple began to turn more old carriages

into unique holiday homes.

The starting cost of a carriage is actually only a tiny percent

of the actual cost of a carriage.

It's the moving of them and it's the doing them up,

and it's the restoration that really, really costs.

So what we pay for the carriages is fairly small

in the grand scheme of things.

We bought a pair of carriages for £27 on eBay,

which sounds like a complete bargain,

but, really, it isn't.

The latest purchase in their collection is going to be

the jewel in the crown.

It's a carriage dating back to 1897

from Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee train.

It's obviously quite rough now, but, at one time,

it would've been completely opulent

and the intention is to recreate that opulence.

Get it looking really, really good.

Look at those windows.

Isn't that amazing?

All that etching, it's beautiful.

And if you look up there, can you see how there was gold

all the way along at one time?

You can imagine the cost of gilding a carriage like this. It's terrific.

And, throughout, we'll try and emulate the style of it

as it was originally.

So these pictures are really going to be invaluable.

Once the carriage is restored,

they hope it'll have a whole new lease of life.

When we had the opportunity of a royal saloon,

we couldn't say no, even though it was expensive.

It cost us more, I think,

than all the others put together. It did, yeah.

After 120 years, the carriage had seen better days.

There we go.

Dave has his work cut out.

Um, these boards are mahogany.

We'll take off the ones that are left,

because you can see they're all warped and splitting,

and we can treat the wood, repair where necessary

and insulate between the framework.

I imagine it'll take three or four years to do.

But I'm an optimist, so it may well be longer than that.

Back on board the equally lovingly restored carriages of The Statesman,

we continue to travel south-west.

We're now sweeping through the spectacular Cornish countryside

for the next 70 miles, on our way to Penzance.

As the sun starts to set, our train returns to the coast

and, in the distance, passengers get a glimpse

of one of the most stunning tidal islands in the world.

St Michael's Mount.

This majestic, but tiny, island lies just 500 metres off Marazion

on the mainland and can be reached by foot when the tide is low

In the early 1800s, the harbour area was a busy hub for sailors

and the population rose to 300.

Today, a close-knit community of 30 islanders live and work here.

The island is at the mercy of the unpredictable Cornish weather

and life is planned around time and tide.

Mike, the island's head boatman and harbourmaster,

grew up on the other side of the causeway.

I've been on the island for six years,

but I've been part of the boating to and from the island

since I was about nine or ten,

when the island wasn't as busy as what it is today,

360,000 visitors.

My dad was a fisherman, so it was in our roots

from a very early age that we were going to end up on the water

doing something that we love,

as well as obviously being able to have it as a job.

So we've got a few island residents just coming in,

so we're going to pop over to Marazion and pick them up.

All right, how are you?

Hop on.

This is the only way to get getting the island residents

to and from the island, and the members of staff,

alongside the visitors.

We do this obviously outside of the visitor hours.

So when you've run out of milk or anything like that,

it's not a five-minute trip to the convenience store.

It's a good three-quarters of an hour, unfortunately,

or just enjoy black tea, one or the other.

I feel I'm a very lucky person to have the job I've got.

It's very unique.

Most definitely.

St Michael's Mount is home to the most unusual terraced gardens.

Despite being surrounded by the English Channel,

they are like a tropical paradise with their own unique microclimate.

Head gardener Darren has known and loved these beautiful grounds

all his life.

I was born and brought up on the island and, when I left school,

I went into horticulture and, in 2000, got a job coming back

to work and live on St Michael's Mount, which I did.

So I come back to my roots and I've been working here since.

The gardens are full of exotic plants that normally grow

in much warmer climes.

So the climate here on St Michael's Mount is very unique.

We're now on the East Terraces, the sort of

Mediterranean-style garden, if you like.

A lot of it is mainly due to the granite.

Granite absorbs the heat and radiates the heat out during the evenings.

We just off the Gulf Stream as well.

So all these elements push together, help us grow these sort

of Mediterranean plants within the gardens.

We've got some lovely Tulbaghias in flower here.

This one up here is quite lovely.

It's, um, Aloe polyphylla, the Spiral Aloe,

comes from the Drakensberg Mountains,

and it sort of grows up to sort of 2,500 feet up in the mountains.

And we're one of the only places actually down here in Cornwall

who've got them flowering outside.

We're now in the West Terraces.

It's mainly sort of hotter colours within the West Terraces.

We try and change the formula of plantings

from the East Terraces, Wall Gardens, to West Terraces.

So, as you walk through the gardens, you get to see different things

as you walk on through.

So the design here is a lot of hot colour.

So a lot of oranges, reds and yellows running throughout the beds.

St Michael's Mount is a tidal island,

where neither its exposed position nor the weather

can ever dampen its beauty.

We have travelled over 400 miles

since leaving York early in the morning,

and we're about to arrive in Penzance, our overnight destination.

Everyone's away now, off to their hotels.

They've had a great journey down.

In the morning, we'll be off to St Ives,

a sea town that has attracted artists for generations,

drawn by the magical light.

It's day two of our glorious rail journey through Devon and Cornwall

and along England's beautiful Riviera.

We're travelling in style in these Mark ll train carriages,

originally built by British Rail in the 1960s

and pulled by our vintage D47 locomotive.

Today, The Statesman will retrace a short section

to explore a famous rail line from Paignton to Kingswear.

OK, ladies, see you soon.

Back to look after our passengers are Sandra and James.

Just doing our final preparation for heading off

to Kingswear, in Devon.

We shall have a super time there in this wonderful weather.

In the driver's cab, John is ready for the off.

ON RADIO: I'm just hearing their conversation with the staff,

I'll give you the right of way on the radio. Over.

OK, thanks, Alan, message received.

To start the train away,

we place the switch to forward from engine only.

And then the power handle,

we go to the "on" position and then, gradually,

as we build up speed, I can take more power.

The Statesman will head north again, passing through Cornwall

over the Royal Albert Bridge

to a very special railway in Devon.

Meanwhile, we'll explore two of Cornwall's picturesque branch lines.

The St Ives Bay Line and, at the small station in Liskeard,

we'll venture down the Looe Valley line.

While The Statesman continues on its luxurious tour of the Riviera,

we are going to make our first diversion.

The St Ives line,

a short, but spectacular, 15-minute ride from St Erth.

The branch line opened in 1877, bringing visitors from London

to the little fishing town of St Ives.

We're joined on board by local artist and former skipper, Robert.

I think, for all those people coming to St Ives,

it would have been almost like going abroad

because of the strong Cornish accent.

You know, in those days,

it would have been, you know, quite exotic.

Artists came too,

inspired by the light and the landscapes.

When they talk about the light in St Ives,

I think it is obviously a very special light here,

but it's, I think, enhanced by the fact

that around, certainly in the bay,

it is sand beneath the water.

And I think there's a reflective quality.

Robert is the author of a book

about one of St Ives' most famous sons,

the painter Alfred Wallis.

Wallis turned to painting in his grief over the death in 1922

of his beloved wife, Susan.

Self-taught after a lifetime as a mariner,

Wallis was almost 70 when he started painting.

He was a man who started painting his memories of being at sea

and sailing ships, fishing,

and his memories of what St Ives used to be.

He was living in a town with a great many artists,

people who were painting in the plein air tradition,

painting outside at their easels.

And yet he was completely his own man.

He was not influenced by those people at all.

Wallis did a whole series of paintings of St Ives Bay.

This is one where you will see the lighthouse and the Stones rocks.

The tide is out.

Alfred Wallis's view of the world was not limited, restricted

by the laws of perspective and conventional painting.

He was able to paint with a freedom which came, in a way, with naivety.

Unlike other artists, Wallis painted what he knew,

not what he saw.

These are paintings from memory.

They are not painted outside.

They were painted on his kitchen table, probably standing,

looking down on them.

And so you have that map-like quality.

You know, they are maps of the sea.

He was an extremely religious man.

And I wonder whether there's an element in these paintings

of it's almost God's view of the world.

Wallis's work had many admirers

within the circles of progressive artists

working in Britain in the 1930s.

Wallis profoundly influenced that group of artists

who are working in St Ives at the time

who became the St Ives Modernists.

Through his influence on them,

he has earned himself a place in the history

of modern British painting.

Sadly, Wallis spent the last years of his life living in poverty.

When he died in the summer of 1942,

he faced a pauper's grave.

He's buried in Barnoon Cemetery.

His artist friends paid for the plot

and renowned potter Bernard Leach made his gravestone.

So this is Alfred Wallis's grave, or tomb.

It is inscribed "Alfred Wallis, Artist & Mariner,

"August the 18th, 1855 to August 29th, 1942.

"Into thy hands, O Lord.

What a spot for Alfred Wallis, overlooking the sea,

overlooking the Atlantic Ocean,

Porthmeor Beach,

and, of course,

here we have his beloved Godrevy Lighthouse.

Back on board The Statesman, our passengers are enjoying

the Cornish landscape.

We're halfway through our journey from Penzance to Kingswear

and are about to go through Liskeard.

This is the start of the Looe Valley line.

It's only eight-and-three-quarter miles long,

but well worth the short diversion to explore

some more of Cornwall's hidden gems.

The first stop on the Looe Valley line is St Keyne Wishing Well Halt,

a station with a difference.

Anyone wanting to get on or off the train here

needs to request a stop.

A bit like taking the bus.

No one's getting off today, but Paul actually lives here.

I came here, to the mill house, when I was a baby in 1948.

I shall never leave here.

I'm going to stay here all my life, hopefully.

My father originally was a miller and, between 1967 and 2012,

we ran the musical museum.

My father and I had mechanical instruments,

fair organs and music boxes,

and I wanted something to play.

Paul is a musician who specialises in restoring musical instruments,

in particular old Wurlitzer organs.

So much so, he set up the magnificent Musical Machines Museum

right next to the station.

At the moment, I'm restoring all the mechanism of Wurlitzer organ

that came from a cinema in Ipswich.

So the console is over here.

This organ is from the Regent Cinema, Brighton, 1929.

It was quite a famous organ in the early 1930s

because the organist there, Terence Casey,

made 35 of his recordings on Columbia and HMV.

You have 693 organ pipes, plus things like Xylophone

and glockenspiel and drums and cymbals.

I did all the mechanism that controls the organ pipes last year,

but, now, this year's all the percussion.

So, for example, this is the Vibraphone.

GLISTENING NOTES

It's like the instrument that plays The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

in The Nutcracker Suite.

Once this marvellous Wurlitzer organ is restored to its former glory,

it's going to sound as good as the day it was built.

If anybody's coming up the Looe railway line next time,

hopefully they can pop in and have a tune on the mighty Wurlitzer

and a cup of coffee.

MUSIC: I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

Meanwhile, passengers on The Statesmen are enjoying

some afternoon refreshments.

This is the way life should be.

Happy days. Happy day$_

Dad likes that part of the country anyway, don't you?

Yeah, lovely. Dartmouth. Torquay. Paignton. It's lovely up there.

Saltash is just around the corner, and, once again, we cross

the Royal Albert Bridge, this time from Cornwall into Devon.

John, our driver is keeping an eye on the speed.

Maximum speed of this train is 95mph,

but our line speed today is governed to 60mph maximum

between Plymouth and Newton Abbot.

Next, our train will continue to Paignton

to join a very special line. WHISTLE BLOWS

It'll be heading south along a track steeped in steam history

and in one of the most beautiful parts of the country,

aboard the Dartmouth Steam Railway.

We're on the final stretch of our day trip from Penzance in Cornwall

to Kingswear in Devon,

to reach the Dartmouth Steam Railway.

The famous heritage line starts at Paignton

and, to get access, we need to change direction.

We're just arriving now into Newton Abbot.

A quick change of direction also means

we need a little cosmetic change to the train.

The headboards for the train today,

we're taking it off to put it on the other end of the train

so that the passengers and the people that see us at Paignton

arrive with the Cornish Riviera headboard on.

So Andrew will be putting it on the front of the other

locomotive, so that it's in the right direction going into Paignton.

The delightful eight-mile ride from Newton Abbot to Paignton

is the start of many a nostalgic memory

as passengers recall their childhood holidays.

Well, this is the railway of memories because we used to live

in Hayle, in Cornwall, and travelled to Paignton every summer

to stay with my grandma.

And we came by train.

In those days, it was a steam engine

and we remember putting our heads out of the window

and getting all the black spats all over our faces.

Very nostalgic indeed.

As it pulls into Paignton, The Statesman transfers

onto its new track, the Dartmouth Steam Railway.

WHISTLE BLOWS

It's not the only locomotive on it today.

It's joined by this one, the sprightly Lydham Manor.

This tiny railway line travels from Paignton

along Goodrington Beach,

through Churston, before crossing over

and running along the edge of the River Dart

and finishing in Kingswear.

It's one of life's great pleasures to take a trip

on a steam locomotive.

Even the regulars still relish it.

You think that, every time, water, coal, combine them

and you can produce power, steam power. It is still amazing.

Former steam train driver Peter has worked on the Dartmouth line

all his life.

I think it's time we let the day driver and fireman

take the engine away and put it on the train ready for a prompt departure.

Our steam locomotive, the Lydham Manor, was built in December 1950.

The manors are considered small, light engines,

but Lydham still weighs over 100 tons

and has a tank capacity of 3,500 gallons.

It's a living being.

It's all fire, heating, water, creating pressure.

There's nothing "push a button and it goes".

It's team effort on the footplate.

If they're out of sync, then you'll come to a grinding halt.

Today's loco driver is Barry,

who's an old hand at looking after the cab.

This is 20 years for me now.

You get to play with big pieces of machinery like this

and entertain all our lovely passengers.

Considering it's a bygone era,

keeping these wonderful machines going, it amazes everybody.

And in charge of the firebox is Seb, who's passionate about this railway.

We are basically carrying on with history.

The steam was what made Britain great,

powered the Industrial Revolution.

And it's nice to feel that you are doing a small part of that

by keeping it going with this job.

You are keeping part of history alive, basically.

The original railway line to Kingswear opened in 1864.

In the seven miles of the railway,

you've got the gradients from sea level up to the peak at Churston.

Three stone-built viaducts, a quarter-of-a-mile-long tunnel.

Many bridges over and under.

It really was quite an engineering feat.

I think, in seven miles,

it took them five years to build it.

To travel seven miles at a maximum speed of 25mph

takes 350 gallons of water and plenty of heat.

For the old steam loco to master the rolling Devon Hills,

Seb knows when to shovel and when not.

At the moment, having just come up the hill, the fire is probably

just about at its hottest.

So the temperature in there would reach

between 1400 and 1500 degrees Celsius.

Part of the skill of the job is controlling the fire.

Getting heat, and therefore steam, when you need it,

but not having too much.

TRAIN WHISTLE

The sound of the steam whistle takes the passengers back in time.

Just to reminisce, see the sights.

I haven't here for a long while.

I came as a youngster,

and it's just nice to see the English countryside, you know.

I've just spent the last few years travelling around the world,

going different places, you forget how lovely

your own country is.

Just coming around the corner now to Goodrington Beach.

Being down on the beach, looking back at the train,

British beach huts,

it is just absolute quintessential Britain.

It's just amazing, three completely different sceneries within

seven miles of the line.

And the sea, the countryside and then the river

down towards Kingswear in Dartmouth. Absolutely beautiful.

Who could ever get tired with watching this?

Back on board The Statesman, the passengers are enjoying

the riverside journey into Kingswear.

The route along the River Dart,

absolutely beautiful with the boats and the college and everything else.

It comes as a whole.

It comes as travelling on the train, going to Dartmouth,

enjoying the ambience of the train, the nostalgia,

the romance of it all.

Our passengers have enjoyed the luxury railway journey

through Cornwall and Devon, and will take a final ride

on the ferry across the River Dart.

With its stunning estuary views, Kingswear and Dartmouth

are the perfect place to end this special day.

We have travelled across Devon and Cornwall and, along the way,

we've been charmed by this beautiful part of Britain.

From the stunning coastline...

...the unique climate...

...and magical Cornish light...

...to the wonderful people,

Devon and Cornwall have truly

some of the most beautiful railways in the world.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media