Original subtitles

Escape with us on a journey back in time through the Lake District

and Yorkshire Dales...

...aboard a luxury Heritage train, the Northern Belle.

It's designed to give people a taste of how it used to be.

It's a romantic voyage pulled by the original 19305 steam train

the Princess Elizabeth where passengers get to enjoy a

grand tour of rural north-west England,

passing the timeless ancient

landscapes of Cumbria and Yorkshire...

What I'm doing when I move my sheep is the same work that somebody

was doing three, four, 5,000 years ago.

That's pretty amazing.

...secret living forests...

If I jump, it's going to run up my leg!

...to witness the true glory of history.

We'll meet the people who live and work along this special railway.

Who strive to keep the great romantic era of rail travel alive.

Well, when you're going through the Yorkshire Dales,

you're going through God's own country. And it's wonderful.

This is no ordinary railway journey.

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

the Lakes and Dales.

England's rural north-west,

spanning Lancashire...

...Cumbria and Yorkshire.

This spectacular region of the country

is famed for its patchwork of fields and green pastures,

it's hillwalking and it's ever-changing weather.

Sometimes with all four seasons in one day.

To carry us through it,

a very special train...

...now backing into a rain-soaked Preston Station.

...to collect passengers for a grand tour of rural England.

This magnificent locomotive is the Princess Elizabeth...

...one of the finest steam engines in the world.

Coupled up with the Northern Belle

and its 13 stylish Pullman carriages.

No-one is more proud of her than train manager Thomas.

Any time we can take a steam engine out, it's a fantastic day for us.

It's absolutely wonderful to use,

especially the Princess Elizabeth engine.

It really brings out the opulence of what rail travel

used to be like.

At the dirty end of the train, old-timer Chris

is getting Lizzie ready.

The driver's job is to get the train to its destination

safely and on time.

A 10:13 am, our, luxurious day out begins.

A train ride voted one of the world's ten greatest journeys

of all time.

The first leg of our ZOO-mile eight hour grand tour takes us north

into Cumbria and the Lake District

to stop at the historic city of Carlisle. Our train then swings

south onto the historic Settle and Carlisle line,

through the Yorkshire Dales National Park,

passing Dent, England's highest station, before finally crossing

the famous Ribblehead Viaduct towards Settle

and back to where our tour started, at Preston.

As our train shoots majestically

north along the West Coast Main Line...

WHISTLE BLOWS

...passengers indulge in the first silver service offering of the day.

We've gone for a special breakfast today, which is a full English

breakfast, and we've also got a smoked salmon option.

After that, we're going to have our sweets, our pastries,

our cakes, our loaves.

And then, after that, another glass of champagne.

Luxury is what the Northern Belle is all about.

Each of the redesigned Pullman carriages has been named

and decorated in honour of famous stately homes,

including Chatsworth,

Harlech

and the Duart.

It was actually the Queen Mother's favourite carriage.

Legend has it that the Queen Mother sat just here

and that was her favourite spot in the car.

And it's affectionately named after Duart Castle.

And the Queen Mother was fond of wildlife of Scotland, England

and Wales, and they're portrayed on the ceiling above us.

According to Heritage Railway manager James, the Belle not only

captures the romance of royalty, but also the glamour of 19305 travel.

The style was of opulence.

It was the golden era of travel. And that's not just rail travel,

that's the early era of air travel

and certainly the great liners...

...the Queens and what have you.

And I think this sort of travel was a more cultured and much

more comfortable way of travel.

This is certainly a luxury train and it's designed to give people

a taste of how it used to be

and reflect the style of the era.

After travelling through windswept Lancashire, the clouds momentarily

part and the Northern Belle glides past the famous

Lake District National Park.

Less than five miles from the tracks, an ancient landscape

where old-fashioned farming traditions still linger.

Here!

Good dogs. That's it, you've got them.

Bunch up. HE WHISTLES

Bunch up. HE WHISTLES

Bunch up.

On a quest to maintain that link with the past is Lakes farmer James.

My family have been here for GOO-plus years.

When I look at this landscape, I know it.

We're written all over it and it's written right through us

like a stick of Blackpool rock when you crack it.

One, two, three, four, five...

The values of the people here reflect this landscape.

Good lassies. HE WHISTLES

I mean, Wordsworth said this 250-odd years ago - there's things

about this landscape that shapes a particular kind of people.

Decades earlier, James inherited a small family farmstead

that his grandfather had once kept in its time-honoured way, much

like the generations before him.

My earliest memories of like following my grandfather round,

he had a sheepdog called Ben. He did everything on foot,

and he spent a lot of time walking on his land.

And, although it was technically working,

and he would spend his time watching the barn owls

in the barn beneath us.

And he would look under the fences like the one we're standing next to

and he would see like three red hairs on the bottom

and he'd say, "That's where the fox comes through every morning."

Come.

Years later, the farm modernised,

losing many of its traditional features.

But then James realised his grandfather

might have been onto something and set about returning

it to its original state.

He restored woodlands...

...and peat bogs.

Opened up an ancient river...

...and introduced traditional

Herdwick sheep.

The genetics go back to the Viking period.

HE SHOUTS COMMANDS

And we think that some of their genetics go back way further to

ancient British sheep, so it's a distinct possibility that

the work I'm doing when I move my sheep

is the same look that somebody was doing

three, four, 5,000 years ago, which is a remarkable thing.

The rewilding of the land had an extraordinary effect

on the natural biodiversity,

but it also improved the farmland,

allowing his livestock to thrive.

Now, when you walk through our fields, there are masses of insects

and butterflies and moths. We're seeing voles and frogs

and toads everywhere.

And then we're seeing the next layer up in the food system,

which is the barn owls, the herons, the kestrels. And there's clovers

and other beautiful flowers, sort of rarer flowers. Round about 100

different species, stuff that was there in the past that's vanished.

James believes the explosion of biodiversity on his farm

stems from these ancient farming practises that work in tune

with nature itself.

Local knowledge passed down here in the Lakes for generations.

This is my home.

If I spend every single day for the rest of my life

in this place, I would die with no regrets.

What more does a person need?

Next, our train continues on through the beautiful

Lake District and then crosses over into Yorkshire

ancl England's historic heartland.

Well, when you're going through the Yorkshire Dales, you're going

through God's own country. And it's wonderful.

We're two hours into one of the world's most scenic

railway journeys, a grand tour of rural north-west England

aboard the Northern Belle.

Obviously, the landscapes are beautiful and it's not like

something that you see from a car because you keep getting whiffs

of the steam going past and it's just beautiful.

One minute, you're looking through the window and you just

realise that, you think, "Why has the view disappeared?"

And then you realise that it's the steam from the train.

The next leg of our journey takes us north for another 80 miles

through the Lake District...

...to then stop at the historic city of Carlisle.

Steam locomotive 6201,

the Princess Elizabeth,

is the undoubted star of the trip.

It's almost the nearest you have a machine to being alive.

There's a lot of affection for this locomotive.

People like the noise, the sound.

We still refer to trains as chuff-chuffs.

Built in 1934 to carry passengers from London to Glasgow...

HORN TOOTS

...by 1936, Lizzie had set the world record for the longest and fastest

nonstop run to Scotland.

Making the 411-mile journey in just under six hours.

Today, we're going at a slightly more luxurious pace...

...as we pull into Carlisle station.

As passengers alight to explore Cumbria's provincial capital,

some head to the city's most famous historic landmark, just a short walk

from the station...

BELL TOLLS

...Carlisle's Gothic Cathedral.

Built in 1122, it's a masterpiece of medieval architecture

that predates the railway by almost 1,000 years.

SINGING WITH ORGAN

Though as Canon Michael knows, God and trains don't always

go hand-in-hand.

Our relationship with the railway and the station

is quite chequered, really.

It's only about eight minutes' walk away.

And when it was all being developed, the dean at the time,

Dean Francis Close, didn't like trains on Sundays and he didn't

like the noise of the trains passing either.

He used to get very annoyed, so he complained.

And one of the funny stories is, the train drivers learnt

of this and actually blew their whistle every time

they passed his house, the deanery.

WHISTLE BLOWS

But the Cathedral's turbulent history began 500 years earlier

when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic papacy

in Rome and looted the monastic community based here.

All that remains of it today is the dining hall.

While they were eating,

this is where they would read

to the monks, various either the Bible

or various religious works.

BELL TOLLS

With no money, the Cathedral fell into disrepair

and the west wing collapsed.

Then it suffered more damage when stonework was stolen

from the nave during the English Civil War.

But even after all this destruction,

you can see glimpses of how it used to be

in the magnificent 51-foot-high east wing stained glass window.

SOLEMN SINGING

It's one of the finest examples of what we call

the flowing Gothic style.

This is one of the largest in England.

There's also an incredible ceiling.

One of the themes of the cathedral is that everybody's special,

everybody's unique.

And here we have stars. Even though there's thousands,

there's one panel which has a star missing to make it different,

to say how special people are.

So to actually work here, it's like living history,

because the history is continued. And there's so many untold stories

of what happened here that I'm still discovering after 12 years.

While we've been visiting the cathedral...

...Lizzie is being repositioned for our return...

...ready for the next leg of the journey south,

through the Yorkshire Dales.

It's a demanding task.

All steam locomotives are temperamental.

They're like women - you've got to treat them right.

Because if you don't treat them right, they'll soon let you down.

STEAM HISSES

She's making a noise now.

Meanwhile, stranger happenings are afoot.

In a hidden underworld that lies 40ft beneath the station known only

to a few, like local tour guide John.

This isn't some fantasy scene from a Jack the Ripper movie set.

It's the Undercroft - an abandoned Victorian arcade that once

was teeming with noisy coal and mail carts,

and even elephants when a visiting circus was based there.

These were dark times,

and some say the sounds still Hngen

This place has long been known as being haunted.

Several ghosts roam the station.

On occasions, you can hear the sound of breaking glass.

Within the dark labyrinth...

...lies an abandoned canteen once used by train staff.

But it's in the old Victorian butcher's cold store

where the grisliest stories look.

In May 1915, bodies from a horrific train crash that took place

at Quintinshill during the First World War were stored here.

Possibly some of the stories of ghosts emanate from these walls.

You do feel that this place is a bit creepy

and it sends shivers down your back.

High above this chamber of horrors...

...our train is finally ready for the next leg.

Well, when you're going through the Yorkshire Dales,

you're going through God's own country.

And it's wonderful to see all seasons and all aspects

of life. You see the change in the landscape. One week

it could be snow, in the summer it's nice and warm.

You see the farmers doing all theirjob on the land.

You're in Yorkshire, and I'm a Yorkshireman.

The Northern Belle now travels south along the Settle and Carlisle line,

passing through Kirkby Stephen and the sweeping Yorkshire Dales.

The line doesn't so much go through the heart

as go over the roof of England,

and it was an extremely difficult line to build.

It took seven and a half years of manual labour, which resulted

in a fairly stunning line which is usually the highlight

of the journey.

Fortunately for those on board, lunch is accompanied

with stunning views.

On the menu today, a trio of salmon,

for starters, followed by

beef Wellington

and that old English favourite, spiced apple crumble.

It can be difficult to serve on a moving train at times, especially

when you're going 90mph on the Main Line. As staff members,

we do get a bit of an internal gyroscope and you do get used

to sort of walking with a bit of a wider gait.

People come dressed beautifully for the day and the nightmare

would be spilling tea or coffee on them straight away -

that would be the hardest part of our job.

Thank you.

With table views to die for,

glorious England unfolds.

50 miles ahead, Kirkby Stephen station,

where time seems to have stood still.

Since Victorian times, some things have never changed.

Like late trains.

But as clock historian Michael knows,

at least the Victorians had a good excuse.

They had the problem of local time

and railway time.

Stations used to put notices up -

"Do arrive ten minutes early because you may miss the train."

The time of clay varied across the country.

It was out by an additional four minutes for every degree

of longitude east or west from London.

Here in Kirkby Stephen, midday would have come around ten minutes later.

Time became important.

So they developed railway time.

With the use of telegraph signals,

their stations and railways all had the same time,

and this was adopted in the 18405

and it took another 20-odd years

before the whole country came into line

and railway time was then Greenwich Mean Time.

Michael's great-great-grandfather, William Potts, got the job of making

over 1,600 public clocks up and down the country...

...with 15 on the Settle and Carlisle line alone, just like this one here.

They're everywhere, and isn't that wonderful?

Finally, in that great tradition of railway time, our train passes

through Kirkby Stephen a little late.

Ladies and gentlemen...

...unfortunately, we're running approximately 20 minutes late.

I do apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Without so much as the wrong kind of autumn leaf on the line,

The Northern Belle continues its journey south...

...to enter the Yorkshire Dales National Park

and some of the most breathtaking scenery found anywhere in the world.

We're halfway through one of the most scenic railway journeys

in the world...

...aboard the Northern Belle.

...as it makes its grand tour of north-western England.

It's very attractive scenery.

It's generally unspoilt.

You see lots of small farms, sheep.

And you've got some high summits.

Our train continues on through the Yorkshire Dales, passing

Dent, England's highest station,

before crossing Blea Moor

and the famous Ribblehead Viaduct.

I think one of the most special things about the Belle

is where we go and what we see.

We get access to areas of the country that aren't

seen by everybody.

Mile after mile of rural pastures roll by.

Some of which include ancient woodland,

the ideal habitat for native species.

Within these secret forest sanctuaries...

...live some of Britain's rarest animals.

The most elusive is so tiny and quick it's almost invisible.

Come on. SHE CLICKS HER TONGUE

Come on, little 'uns.

Come on.

Unless you are Julie, the squirrel whisperer.

There you are.

Come on over, then.

Come on.

They are really, really flighty.

Little gymnasts in the trees.

It's like a flash of red lightning between the branches,

so it's difficult sometimes to see them.

Hello again. Hello again.

Don't you stand on my feet.

Here's some more nice feed for you.

Try that one. Going to bury it?

They've got beautiful coats. They go from red to brown to grey to rust

to orange - they basically follow the colours of the rainbow.

There's one at my feet at the moment,

and if I jump it's going to run up my leg!

Always hungry, always busy.

Red squirrels are native to the British Isles, having lived

here since the last Ice Age over 10,000 years ago.

But in recent decades, the arrival of the grey squirrel and habitat

loss have threatened their survival.

Conservationists like Julie are helping the population to recover.

A lot of the natural food isn't there for the squirrels.

So we supplementary feed them basically to try and do some

squirrel counts, to record the behaviour, to record the range

and to just ensure that they are healthy.

After 30 years' work, Julie and her fellow conservationists

have stabilised the population.

There are now estimated to be around 300,000 red squirrels

in the country, and they're making a comeback.

We've helped those squirrels to survive and thrive

and now increase the range.

My all-time dream is for everybody to experience red squirrels

in their natural habitat, which is where we want them to be.

Five hours into ourjourney, our train ascends towards the highest

point on England's Main Line.

At 1,150ft, Dent station.

It marks the starting point of a dramatic new landscape carved

out by glaciers and erosion...

...which the railway builders

tunnelled through at Blea Moor,

where the line runs SOOft underground.

After travelling for a mile and a half along the line's longest

tunnel, the route emerges onto the famous Ribblehead Viaduct.

1,300ft long, 100ft high and 24 arches wide, it's considered

to be one of the great Victorian landmarks of Northern England.

But behind its glory hides a forgotten chapter of history.

Of the migrant labourers who worked on the railway known as the navvies.

Local historian Sarah has been uncovering their story.

Nowadays, in the 21st century, we have these romantic notions

of these navvies who built this fantastic viaduct up at Ribblehead,

but the reality was far worse.

Navvies did have a tough life beyond what we could possibly imagine

in this day and age.

They had to dig ten tonnes a day and the average age

of death of the navvies was about 30.

A surprising number of the navvies died from being crushed

between wagons.

Some of the deaths were linked just to absolute exhaustion.

If you weren't hardy, you would not survive, and many didn't.

215 navvies and their families are buried here

at Chapel-le-Dale church that lies near the Viaduct.

Some would have lived with their families

in temporary construction camps close to the Viaduct.

But what surprised Sarah when she began researching

about their lives in 19th century journals and local newspapers

is the bad press they received.

They would read these reports in the paper

and then that would be the basis

of, "Oh, well, we don't want the navvies living round here.

"You know what they say about

"the navvies - they're always in trouble."

But obviously, newspapers then, as now, wanted to sell papers

and may well have embellished a couple of stories just to make

it particularly interesting.

In fact, one of the navvies that died

actually was singing at a concert to raise money for the lifeboat fund

just a couple of months before he was killed by a crane.

So he was obviously making a good contribution to life

in the town.

It's such a shame that, at the time, so few people acknowledged

and understood the significance and importance

of what they were doing and made sacrifices themselves

just so that we can enjoy this fantastic scenery today

from the railway.

150 years on, Ribblehead still has its admirers.

Careful - it looks a bit slippy here.

A mere deluge won't stop passionate train enthusiasts

Steve and Daniel heading out today.

I think this is as good a spot as any.

Yeah, that'll do.

They'll be nice.

Finding the best - or should we say driest - seat in the house

requires some optimism.

Not the ideal weather for cameras, but hey-oh.

Why do I do this? THEY LAUGH

That's what my missus says.

While Daniel opts to photograph the train,

Steve prefers to video it.

Yeah, that'll do.

Having as a boy fallen in love with the sound of steam

when his father worked as a Signalman.

Nothing more fantastic than seeing a steam engine going over

this viaduct, working hard, you know?

The sound is incredible.

You can't beat it, even in weather like this.

We get a bad rep.

People call us train spotters, but we're not train spotters,

we're enthusiasts. My wife thinks I'm a bit mad, yeah.

Especially when she knows I'm out in this weather,

but you can't beat it.

I mean, you'll always have a good chat

with somebody who's next to you on the line.

It's just a bit of a band of brothers, really.

Yeah, you'll be lucky.

F

é

F

F

é

And for our intrepid band of brothers, braving out even

the harshest rain is worth it

just for a glimpse of Lizzie.

Meanwhile, lounging in comfort on the Belle's plush

upholstered seats, rain is the perfect

accompaniment to a glass of champagne.

If it's raining outside, it doesn't really matter

and you can still see the scenery.

There's a certain amount of satisfaction, I think,

being inside a nice, comfy, warm carriage when it's

chucking it down outside.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Ahead, at the Viaduct, no bog is too deep

for a train enthusiast pro.

People call it atmospheric, but I just call it wet!

%

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

WHISTLE BLOWS

F

Just trying to keep the rain off.

Fortunately, there's a good watering hole for our train enthusiasts

to dry out in just below the Viaduct.

While above our luxury train, the Northern Belle,

makes the final push...

...onwards towards Settle and some of England's finest views.

It's the final leg of our ZOO-mile train journey through north-western

England aboard the Northern Belle.

After six hours of travel, the sunshine has returned

and it's time for afternoon tea.

We get the pleasure of seeing the Great British countryside,

and it's beautiful.

We meet a lot of interesting people, we've got a good team

and we all work well together.

The customers absolutely cheer us up.

It's like they're coming into our home. They make our day.

F

F

é

The last stretch of our journey passes through some of the finest

landscapes in the country...

...and the picturesque Settle.

Come on.

For local outdoor expert Jonathan, the views close to this railway town

hold ancient secrets of epic proportions.

The Settle-Carlisle line almost tells a story of England.

There are so many different geological features that

encapsulate the area.

From station to station, each is like a separate episode

of the story.

The story began 200 million years ago when the distinctive limestone

outcrops that surround our train route were once the floor

of a vast tropical ocean.

Then it got heaved up to become mountains that in turn were

exposed to the raw elements.

The carbon of the rock and the acid of the rain gradually erode

into big divots of the rock

called grikes, which is a local name. And the grikes

are the gaps where the water is eroded down to the bed below.

Even from the train window, this erosion is visible.

And, as John knows, this exposure to the natural elements is precisely

what makes this area so spectacular.

It's the way the white rock glistens and glows in the late sunlight.

And the Settle-Carlisle railway passes through this landscape

and you can see geology and history coming alive

in this absolutely unique area.

Once past Settle, the Northern Belle makes its final push

back to Preston...

...where our journey began eight hours earlier.

It's always lovely when we get to wave goodbye to all the people

on the platform. We've had family members, friends

that are waving us goodbye.

It's not an everyday occurrence that you get to ride on a luxury

steam-pulled steam train,

so it's always wonderful to be able to wave everybody goodbye.

On our epic ZOO-mile tour of north-western England...

WHISTLE BLOWS

...we have travelled through the magnificent Lake District...

...experienced the past like never before, discovered the wonders

that lie along the line

and basked in the glory of the stunning Yorkshire Dales.

And all aboard the Northern Belle,

the grand duchess of luxury steam trains.

Our plush grand tour through England's green pastures

has been the experience of a lifetime.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media