Original subtitles

Join us as we escape on a nostalgic journey through the Peak District

to discover a lost era of Britain,

aboard a steam locomotive that defined its age...

The Royal Scot.

You really feel it go at 75.

You get thrown about. It's good fun.

It's a voyage that straddles two of Britain's greatest railway cities,

Crewe and York,

and between these historic gems,

the jewel of the English countryside -

Charlotte Bronte country...

..and the Derbyshire Peak District.

What a day to be out.

Aboard our world-class steam train,

we pass the places where legends were born...

..and the forgotten corners of Britain

where the locals still reign supreme.

Called it the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.

We meet the people who strive to keep the magic of steam alive...

The railways are so much more than just trains.

They made the country what it is today.

..before we arrive in York,

once the centre of Northeast England's railway network,

and today, home to the National Railway Museum.

This is no ordinary railway journey.

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

The Peak District.

In the heart of northern England -

the Peaks.

Their gentle, undulating valleys

crowned by spectacular gritstone escarpments,

have inspired writers, travellers

and lovers of nature for generations.

What more charming way to travel through it than aboard a train

as iconic as the landscape itself?

Now, awaiting passengers at Crewe station.

The Royal Scot.

Built in 1927,

46100 was the first of 70 Royal Scot class locomotives

commissioned by the London Midland Scottish Railway

to haul express trains from London to Scotland.

Today, Phil's hand is on the regulator.

The train brake's over here.

You've got your reverser, which enables the loco to go

backwards and forwards.

Steam brake, which is for the locomotive only.

And this is the regulator.

This controls how much steam goes from the boiler into the chest.

It's similar to an accelerator in your car.

We can get up to 75mph.

That will be the maximum speed for today.

You'll really feel it go at 75.

You get thrown about a bit on the foot plate,

but it's good fun.

And the fun couldn't be classier.

Nine elegant Pullman carriages,

all dating back to the 1950s.

WHISTLE BLOWS

STEAM HISSES

At 8:31am, our grand nobleman of the railways

glides out of Crewe - the city where railways were born.

The first leg of our five hour journey takes us whizzing

through Cheshire, where we pass through the last remnants

of Britain's ancient peat bogs.

From here, we enter Derbyshire and the Peak District National Park

to travel through the stunning Hope Valley where farmers

are rewilding the land and Charlotte Bronte drew inspiration.

And then on to arrive at our historic destination, York.

During this luxury private steam trip,

passengers get to enjoy first class silver service

that echoes a bygone golden era of travel.

We have all the crystalware, even the glassware is taking us back

to that time of elegance.

It's all about taking guests back to the time

when things were done slowly.

Slowly, that is,

except for the flow of champagne bellinis.

ALL: Cheers.

THEY LAUGH

This is lovely, isn't it? Nice.

I'm not quite sure what's in it, but it's very nice.

I think you don't care, really, do you? No, I don't!

Cheers!

It's great to see some familiar faces -

seen guests coming again,

and also some new faces that we haven't seen before.

So, it's very, very special.

Half an hour into the journey,

the Royal Scot's pistons are firing in true time-honoured style.

TRAIN HORN BLOWS

Originally numbered 6100,

it was designed by Sir Henry Fowler

for the London Midland Scottish Railway.

At 63 foot long and 85 tonnes,

this locomotive could haul passengers from London to Glasgow

in just over seven hours,

and was capable of speeds of over 100mph.

For railway aficionado Peter Watkinson,

the Royal Scot is one of the greatest trains in the world.

It was chosen to travel across to America in 1933

for exhibition in Chicago,

and whilst it was over there,

it took actually a full train of LMS carriages with it

and it travelled all around North America and across the Rockies.

The Royal Scot travelled over 11,000 miles across the United States

and Canada, enthralling passengers who had never seen or heard

a British locomotive.

Today it's on the main line, doing what it should do,

hauling trains throughout Britain.

An hour into our journey, we join one of the oldest train routes

in the world - the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

The line was the vision

of pioneering engineer George Stephenson...

Creator of the first passenger railway in history.

But here at Chat Moss, Stephenson faced an almost impossible task

of crossing a 7,000-year-old peat bog

formed at the end of the last Ice Age.

Nothing would stand in Stephenson's way, so he constructed a raised

embankment, supported on pontoons of timber and heather,

lending the name "the floating railway" to the line.

Today, the last remnants of the marshland can still be seen

from the train window.

Passionate about its windswept, permeable natural beauty

is local conservationist David...

..along with his fellow bog enthusiasts from the Wildlife Trust

who are protecting this ancient peat land.

It's the glory of the place.

I come here, I just.

You just lose yourself. This mindfulness people speak about.

I didn't realise we had mindfulness - the Moss is mindfulness.

Just... I'll go quiet and just look.

Feel the wind - it's trying to blow me over.

It's an element. It wants me to actually fall in the mire.

It doesn't particularly care about me, but I care about it.

David has been coming here for over 60 years

and he may be onto something...

Lowland peat bogs like this once covered thousands of square miles

of Britain before a staggering 99% of them were damaged

through farm drainage and peat extraction.

These local volunteers are on a mission to rescue the last 1%.

So, you can see, still plenty of water in there.

Such a good water store to prevent flooding.

Bit of rain and it springs back to life

cos it can actually hold 20 times its own weight in water.

This is what a bog should look like.

There's actually about 30 different species of plant in here.

If you look a bit closer at a bog,

there's a whole world waiting to be discovered.

Discovering these wonders as well as nurturing them

is starting to pay off.

Numerous bird species, insects and butterflies are returning...

..and this carbon friendly peat wilderness

continues to be cared for by nature lovers like David.

Destined to be forever at his best

knee deep in Cheshire's most famous bog.

It's the beauty of nature,

this wonderful, windswept landscape.

You go home refreshed. You go home happily tired.

That cup of tea tastes better than any cup of tea

you could possibly have when you first get in the house,

because even on a day like today,

there's great joy in the place.

While our passengers soak up the views...

..Executive Chef Nick and his team

prepare the first carbohydrates of the day.

We're just starting Breakfast Service.

We've got 111 diners on board today.

They have a choice of a full English breakfast

or smoked salmon on a toasted English muffin

with caviar and scrambled eggs.

I'm going to sprinkle chives now.

And some fresh pea shoots.

The motion of the train is really difficult.

We have to make sure that everything is quite well secured

so we don't lose any ingredients kind of flying about or anything.

The chef is keen that the menu reflects the regional flavours

that lie along the route.

The menus that I write for the train trips are meticulously planned

in advance to incorporate ingredients and dishes

depending on where we are in the country.

So, for example, today's menu

is using ham that is braised for nine hours,

that comes from the Vale of Edale that we're travelling

through on the journey today.

Thank you.

Well, that was an amazing breakfast.

That was a good start.

The smoked salmon, caviar, are absolutely spot on.

Soon our train reaches the picturesque border

with Derbyshire...

..where we are about to enter one of Britain's most famous

and magnificent national parks.

We're two and a half hours into one of Britain's most classic railway

journeys, puffing our way through northeast England

towards the Peak District

aboard the Royal Scot -

a steam lover's dream.

He still has a train set now. It's up in the loft.

Goes there for hours. THEY LAUGH

Loves every minute.

It's one of those iconic journeys

and it's recalling the heady days of steam.

It's just nice - a nice pace of life.

A slower pace of life.

On the next leg of our journey,

we travel across Marple Viaduct

to be greeted by views

of the magnificent Peak District National Park,

and then continue on past Derwent Reservoir -

historic home of the legendary Dambusters.

As we approach the border of Cheshire and Derbyshire

and past the village of Romiley,

the railway line runs close alongside

an even older transport route for over ten miles...

The Peak Forest Canal.

During the 18th century,

Britain's canals were the motorways of the Industrial Revolution.

The Peak Forest Canal was used

to transport quarried stone to Manchester

and wool to the burgeoning cotton mills of the north.

Today, the canal may not be the bustling superhighway

that it once was,

but life at 4mph, to some,

is the only way to admire the landscape.

Especially for canal boat dweller and artist Steve.

I love the Peak District Canal because it's so quiet

and so picturesque.

The system's 2,000 miles long

and it's a conservation corridor the whole way along it.

You get such amazing wildlife

from deer to kingfishers.

All sorts of incredible birds, like sea birds even following you,

and fishing behind the boat, which is incredible.

So, yeah, it broadens your horizons.

But for Steve, the waterway is so much more

than just a pleasant ride.

It's also pulsating with history.

His 72 foot diesel powered canal boat "Prince" was built in 1931

as a working vessel to shunt goods like coal up and down the country.

It's one of the rare few of its type surviving.

All right, Steve. You good? Yeah, good, thanks.

He's converted it into his home,

but like many of the original canal boats,

it was designed with a deep hull

to haul heavy goods up and down the country, including coal.

With a long boat like Prince,

you have to learn a few little tricks to get them to go

where you need them to.

The Peak Forest Canal terminates at Bugsworth Basin.

Built in 1796, it became Britain's busiest inland port.

Limestone from local quarries was loaded from tram carts here,

then shipped along the waterways to coast and country.

When you even scratch the surface of that history,

it's just incredible.

The engineering works to bring that product

down into Bugsworth Basin

and then trans-ship it to other boats

and send it off around the north - it's just epic.

And all of this in the late 17, early 1800s.

As the railways spread across Britain,

the canals fell into decline.

Bugsworth Basin closed in 1920,

though it later re-emerged as a local beauty spot.

Close by at Marple Viaduct,

these two great transport routes of both water and rail

run side by side.

The aqueduct from the great era of canals built in 1800...

..and the railway viaduct built 65 years later.

Passengers get to see them both

as the Royal Scot majestically glides over and past

the twin bridges that defined progress in their day.

Our train journey continues on east,

crossing over into Derbyshire.

HORN BLOWS

We're actually now passing through Cowburn tunnel itself.

This is two and a half miles long, this tunnel,

and this is the deepest tunnel in England.

HORN BLOWS

On the other side, passengers are greeted by one of the most

glorious sights in the country -

the Peak District National Park.

It came into existence after public gatherings during the 1930s

that demanded the right to roam.

The Kinder Scout mass trespass,

as it became known,

led to the creation of Britain's first national park.

Tremendously popular, this area with climbers and walkers,

fabulous area to travel to,

and is one of the country's most popular national parks.

Out for a bit of adventure today is local mountaineer Paul,

keen to show his son Ben one of his favourite climbs in an area

known as the Dark Peak.

We talk about the Dark Peak being the area where there's

gritstone and the White Peak being the limestone,

the lighter coloured rock, and that's what distinguishes the two.

Why don't we go and have a look at the slab?

Yeah, that sounds good.

Right in the heart of the Dark Peak is a rock escarpment

called Stanage Edge,

quite a challenge for inexperienced climbers,

though not, of course, if your dad is a top mountaineer.

You could do a lead climb, couldn't you, Ben? Yes.

It's good to get out on a day like this.

I always enjoy coming here

and climbing the routes.

Of course, Paul - he's not worried in the slightest.

Might be good putting the shoes on.

It's an absolute pleasure to come out with Ben and to teach him some

of the skills that have sort of enhanced my life.

We share this interest which is amazing.

Amazing.

Let's have a look at your knot. Looks good.

OK. OK, I think we're ready to climb.

So, climb when you're ready, Ben. OK. Climbing.

See the traverse sign there, Ben,

you'll be able to get some good cams in.

OK. So make sure it's well protected.

Ben's using what we call a camming device,

which is something he's putting into the rock,

so if he falls off, that will stop him from falling too far.

So now what he'll do is he'll clip the rope into that

and that will protect the next section.

That's a good piece, is it, Ben?

Yeah, really good.

Many of the world's top mountaineers have trained here

among the thousands of different climbing routes

in the Peaks.

The weathered sandstone is covered in vertical joints and fractures

that make it good for climbers

and is sometimes called "crack climbing."

Yeah, that's great.

He's got to the top, done really well.

At the top, the breathtaking views

that all park visitors come here to see.

555 square miles

of spectacular Peaks' wilderness.

How was that, Ben?

It was good. Bit cold once I got to the top,

but I was still really enjoyed it. Good.

Well done. Good effort. Thank you.

That's a really step up in your leading. Yeah.

What a day to be out.

It's just relaxing and the food's great.

It's a different era,

which I remember.

It's not just the luxury Pullman carriages that date back

to a lost era of travel.

The landscapes outside are also steeped in history.

Along the route, we actually pass the Derwent Reservoir.

Now, this has become very famous since the Second World War

because 617 Squadron did training exercises

and they were known as the Dambusters.

Immortalised in the 1955 film,

617 Squadron was set up by veteran pilot Guy Gibson

during the Second World War.

His mission was to train young, inexperienced pilots to drop

a revolutionary new bouncing bomb

on strategic dams in Nazi Germany's Ruhr Industrial Belt.

Only six miles to the north of the railway tracks,

Derwent Reservoir, where the Dambusters trained,

still graces the landscape.

Today, it's a tranquil beauty spot.

PLANE ROARS

Other than the occasional fly-past of a Lancaster bomber,

as during the 70th anniversary commemorations.

But in 1943 it was alive with the roar of countless training runs

by low flying bombers for a full six weeks.

According to local historian Robert,

Derwent was the perfect training ground for the Dambusters.

The countryside around Derwent Valley approximates to that

around the German dams.

And the dams also have two towers,

just like their German counterparts.

They'd come in low over the hills,

settle down to 60 feet,

get the speed right at 220mph.

The bomb aimer would hold the sight to his eye,

he'd line up against the tower,

waiting for the moment at which he would press the release button.

EXPLOSION

On the 16th of May 1943,

19 Lancasters and 133 airmen

set off under moonlight to target three dams in the Ruhr Valley.

Two of the three target dams were hit.

We attended from the power station,

standing on the bank, rather like we are now,

looking at the face of the dam.

And gradually he saw small cracks appearing

and jets of water spraying out

through those cracks, glinting in the moonlight.

It must have been a terrifying sight for him.

The Mohne Dam alone emptied 130 million tonnes of water

as a 25 foot high tidal wave surged down the valley,

damaging over 100 factories

and destroying vital Nazi infrastructure.

Today, a memorial still stands at the Derwent Dam

to honour the loss of 1,500 Germans, many of them civilians,

and 53 British airmen.

We remember not only the courage and the skill of the air crews

and the engineering ingenuity of the bouncing bomb...

..but we also remember those who lost their lives

in the dam busting operation.

By mid-morning, our train is halfway along its five hour journey

through the Peaks,

but for blossoming romantics aboard,

Derbyshire's rolling landscapes

are still only just beginning to unfold.

HORN BLOWS

We're on the Crewe to York steam train -

a stunning journey through the Peak District

aboard one of the world's most classic trains, the Royal Scot.

A fabulous way of travel compared to modern trains, which are cramped.

Plastic seats. Plastic tables.

Plastic cups. Plastic coffee.

It's the whole experience of enjoying a comfortable train.

The scenery as we travel along the UK network is wonderful.

Still within the Peak District National Park,

we pass Hope Station and its rolling limestone valleys

and then picturesque Hathersage

that inspired the acclaimed author Charlotte Bronte,

to eventually join the East Coast mainline via Sheffield.

The railway follows the contours of the Hope Valley

that lends its name to the line.

The geology here is in stark contrast to the exposed Dark Peak.

These more sheltered limestone hills are rich and fertile,

a landscape that has been exploited and shaped by farmers

since ancient times.

One family living here for centuries is Geoff's, and he himself

still remembers when steam locomotives passed

through the valley.

The Hope Valley line runs through my farm.

When I was a kid, we used to go up to Hope Station,

which is just there - they used to let us ride on the good trains.

Jumped in all the carriages.

When Geoff isn't jumping goods wagons,

he's busy driving his own instead.

But he's no ordinary farmer.

He's gained a local reputation of being something of an inventor...

Pull the lever and the bags drop off onto the floor, like that.

We can't really drop it because I can't lift it back up again.

..often seen with his strange machines up on the moor.

Over the years, I've built harvesters.

This is after 30 years of developing them,

I've landed up with this particular machine.

Geoff has invented these machines

to help revive the heather that once covered this area.

It's said to be rarer than rainforest and home to a rich

variety of flora and fauna.

Choking it out has been bracken,

ever on the rampage.

Solid bracken.

It dies off in the winter.

It's not a very good carbon plant.

It carries very, very few insects or wildlife.

There's hardly anything living. It's just dead material.

This is where Geoff's strange machines have come up trumps.

Allowing him to rewild the landscape

with the heather that he loves,

using inventions

that he's also rather fond of.

We designed it so it just takes the heather seed off the plant

and leaves the plant intact so we don't damage the plant.

After harvesting, he moves on to his next contraption -

this one designed to extract the tiny heather seeds.

That is what I'm after.

That is the pure seed.

It's just like pepper dust.

Geoff's next contraption, however,

got scientists so excited

they awarded him a university degree for his discoveries.

My son came across and he'd not seen what I've been doing.

He called it the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory!

Geoff blows smoke over spring water that is fed through a radiator,

which then condenses to form what he calls

concentrated liquid smoke.

Smells like kippers.

I think they do actually put this sort of liquid

onto kippers nowadays.

They don't smoke them - they use the liquid.

But what that does, when it gets into contact with the heather seed,

it breaks the dormancy,

so that it germinates,

because in natural processes,

a lot of species will germinate when they've been through a fire.

Plus, it stops all the microbes in the soil eating the seed.

Thanks to Geoff's passion and enthusiasm...

..which has even earned him the nickname the Heather Doctor,

the moorland is once again rich in its natural plant cover

and Hope Valley is truly living up to its name.

I seeded all the hill, right the way round,

right the way round the village.

And it took a fair few years for the heather to establish,

but then three quarters around the village went purple.

I even got remarks from the local villagers,

they said, "Oh, it must be a good year for heather this year."

All you have to do is watch the scenery,

sit ere, talk, eat and drink.

It's very difficult! It's a hard life!

Passing the newly planted heather,

our train continues along the Hope Valley Line.

Chuffing past Hathersage,

a village with a surprising link to literary folklore.

It was here that Charlotte Bronte found inspiration

for what became one of the classics of Victorian English literature -

Jane Eyre.

Local tour guide Ellen believes she knows the exact sources

of particular people and places that turn up in the novel.

"I turned in direction of the sound of the chimes of the clock,

"and there, among the romantic hills

"I saw a hamlet and a spire.

"All of the valley at my right was full of pasture fields."

Bronte was 30 years old when she visited Hathersage in 1846,

here on a three week visit to spend time with an old school friend.

The village made such a lasting impression on the author

that hardly a part of it doesn't appear somewhere in the book,

including North Lees Hall.

In the book she called it Thornfields,

and thorn is an anagram of north,

and Lees is the old ancient Saxon word for field.

"I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion.

"It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast,

"though considerable.

"A gentleman's manor house, not a nobleman's seat.

"Battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look."

Further clues to the sources of Charlotte's inspiration

can be found in the local hotel,

once the coaching inn where Charlotte stayed...

..and the village church.

There's "Eyre" written right in the middle of the back wall.

One detail, however, during Bronte's stay here

didn't make the novel -

when the church vicar made a failed marriage bid

to the unimpressed author.

We hear from her diaries that she turned him down

because he was "a boring sententious pig."

Unfortunately, "the pig" was Charlotte's friend's brother,

but after that little faux pas,

peace between them was restored.

Charlotte even decorated the vicarage when someone finally

said "yes" to the bore.

In a further twist,

Charlotte's own family invested in the Northern Railways,

but the railway never passed through Hathersage

till after Jane Eyre was published.

Soon after leaving Hope Valley,

we pass through Totley Tunnel, second longest in the country.

HORN BLARES

The Royal Scot dashes north through Yorkshire...

..heading towards the county capital,

one of northern England's most treasured historic cities

steeped in railway history.

We're heading north for the final stretch of our five hour journey

through the Peaks,

pulled by our noble steed of iron, the Royal Scot.

And as the locomotive crew shovel coal...

..the service team oil the passengers with still more Bellinis.

I travelled from Ilkley in Yorkshire

to Leeds to Manchester

to go to York,

to come back to Manchester,

to go back to Leeds,

and back to Ilkley.

With my son's help putting me on the train.

I haven't been on a steam train before.

With the arrival in York looming,

our well-fed passengers are already planning the afternoon's forays.

When we get to York, we hope to have a very long walk

around the city, walk off some of the excess

that we've enjoyed this morning.

It's a time to catch up. Relax.

Have a day out.

Where are we going then? I don't know!

SHE LAUGHS

We've got a little bit of shopping to do.

And we want to go into the cathedral.

Finally, we arrive at one of the most adored cities

of the north - York.

The station is a fitting end to our journey.

Even during Victorian times,

it was considered a monument of engineering,

worthy of the city's role

as the centre of north-eastern England's railway network.

Thank you. See you later.

It's the perfect gateway for exploring

the grand old medieval city of York.

For railway enthusiasts,

the city's greatest attraction lies only feet away from the station

in an old Victorian train shed.

Anthony is Senior Curator of the National Railway Museum.

It still gives a great atmosphere to the cavern that this must

have been and gives rise to the name that so many

called locomotive sheds - "cathedrals of steam."

If railways were indeed a religion,

this cathedral would impress,

with over 80 locomotives, carriages and wagons and 11,000 objects,

including some of the fastest,

like Japan's bullet train.

And some of the most elegant ever built,

like the Royal Train, the Gladstone.

The collection also includes

some of the oldest locomotives in the world.

One of Anthony's favourites is a replica of Stephenson's Rocket.

It's assembled with carriages of the period, as well.

The first class looking like a stagecoach with three carriage

bodies on top of a single chassis.

These carriages, this locomotive, would have worked across Chat Moss

at the opening of the Liverpool Manchester Railway.

Within the hallways of this treasure trove of railway history

are its incredible archives.

Even the Royal Scot's own story can be found here with posters,

route maps and brochures,

dating back to when it ran from Euston to Glasgow.

And its legendary journey

across North America in the 1930s.

The route that it took, the crowds coming to see it.

Look at that there.

The contrast between Royal Scot and the Broadway Limited,

the US loco against the UK loco.

The railways are so much more than just trains.

They're about people, communities, places, travel.

Railways created the industrial heartlands of Britain.

They brought people closer together.

They created networks and they made the country what it is today.

And today, what a glorious journey passengers have enjoyed.

Passing famous landmarks at Marple,

crossing the windswept Peaks

and their secret treasure trove of British heritage.

All aboard one of the world's most adored steam trains,

a glistening iron horse

that is still very much alive and kicking -

the Royal Scot.