Original subtitles

They're such icons that, for kids and tourists alike, picking up

a model like this is a must.

But we're not learning how these little things are made.

No, no.

We're building one of these!

The red double-decker bus.

Millions of passengers ride through the capital every day

on 6,500 of them.

They're as synonymous with London as Tower Bridge

and Buckingham Palace.

So, I've got exclusive access to one of the factories that makes

these tremendous people movers.

I'm making a bus.

Each week, this huge factory gets through 57,000 rivets...

..a thousand miles of cables...

..and 500 litres of paint.

I'm Gregg Wallace...

Whoa!

You've only just cleared it.

..and I'm finding out how advanced engineering...

I feel like I've been sealed in!

..and a highly-skilled workforce produce these 13.5 tonne beauties.

Biggest windscreen I've ever seen.

And Cherry Healey...

- I feel like we've stepped inside Nasa.

- ..is discovering space-age technology

that makes huge windscreens...

- It's basically a giant pressure cooker.

- ..while historian Ruth Goodman...

- Blimey! This is a bit gorgeous, isn't it?

- ..is stepping on board to reveal London's earliest double-decker.

- They're crammed on there, aren't they? Look at that!

- With this incredible super-size production line,

you are never waiting long for a bus around here.

Welcome to Inside The Factory XL.

This is the Alexander Dennis factory near Scarborough in Yorkshire.

700 people work here, making 25 buses every week.

London double-deckers have been world famous

for more than 100 years,

and now the assembly lines' engineers and skilled tradespeople

are supercharging them for the modern age.

We're following production of their Enviro400 model -

that's the famous red double-decker London bus.

But these ones are a bit special because they are fully electric.

Fewer than 5% of the capital's current double-deckers

are fully electric.

But with an order for 127, our super-size factory is helping

to bring this icon bang up-to-date.

Electrifying this most modern of machines will take

a whopping 23 days.

It all starts outside...

..with one of the strangest-looking deliveries I've ever seen.

To enlighten me is engineer Lindsey Entwistle.

Hello, Lindsey. - Hi, Gregg. - Nice to meet you.

THAT is an unusual-looking delivery.

- Yes. So, this is what we start with when we're building

a double-decker bus. It's the chassis.

- It's the bottom half of a bus!

- That's exactly what it is.

It comes in fully assembled and we build a bus on top of it.

- Whether building electric or diesel-powered buses,

it always starts with the chassis, which is the base of the vehicle.

Ten of these eight-tonne monsters are delivered from China every week,

onto which the structure is added in a process called coach-building.

How do you get those beasts off the truck?

- These can be driven exactly as they are.

- What, you drive them off? - Yep.

- What, they've got a steering wheel and pedals and...?

- Yep, they've got all the controls that you need.

- So, what do you do then? Just paint it red?

- It's a bit more complicated than that.

- BEEPING

The electric motor kicks

silently into life...

Whoa!

Eight tonne of nearly bus.

..and the driver reverses the chassis...

Whoa!

..effortlessly off the lorry.

That is nothing short of fabulous.

Amazing. What happens to it now?

- Now it gets driven to the first stage of production.

- The strange sight continues...

..as our bus chassis travels 400m...

..and in through the doors of the factory.

The 10.6m-long chassis is the cornerstone of our bus build.

It's onto this steel structure that nearly everything

will be assembled, creating a 4.3m-high, 13.5 tonne vehicle

capable of carrying 85 passengers.

That's our unwrapped drivable bus chassis, right?

- Yes. You'll see here we've got the steering wheel

and pedals down there.

- Virtually got a complete panel here. - Yeah.

And then your first couple of batteries are right here.

- Are these all batteries?

My word. How many batteries does it take?!

- There's 18 batteries on one of these chassis.

Six spread out here and 12 at the back.

- Amazingly, the batteries arrive already built into the chassis

and are spread out to help distribute the weight,

aiding stability.

They can hold 382 kilowatt hours of electricity between them -

that's about five times more than the average electric car

and enough to give our bus a range of at least 170 miles.

I'm not really mechanically or technically minded.

Are you able to explain to me how the bus works?

- So, you charge the batteries through the charging points.

The batteries are then connected to a number of control units

through to the motors, which are on the drive axle here at the rear

of the vehicle.

So, the motors turn, which turns the wheels

and then the bus moves forward.

- Our buses feature two electric motors, each powering one

of the rear wheels.

Between them, they generate 402 horsepower, enough to propel

the vehicles to a maximum speed of 45mph.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

It may arrive ready to drive, but there's an enormous amount

of work to do before this thing is going to be picking up passengers.

And before coach-building can begin, the chassis is jacked up

onto trolleys running on rails,

so the vehicle can start its journey...

..down the assembly line.

Stretching to 262m,

it's the heart of the factory,

where 535 people work in unison

to put together these huge machines by hand.

At the first stop...

BELL RINGS

..2.5m-long wheel boxes are installed, covering up

the central batteries and creating floor space.

I'm meeting operations manager Chris Haldenby, who's preparing

the key component of any double-decker.

Hello, Chris. Why do you put the staircase on so early?

- Otherwise, we wouldn't get it in, unfortunately. We've got two sides

and the middle there and it wouldn't fit in if we don't put it on now.

- Of course. What is that made out of?

- It's made out of glass-reinforced plastic - a very durable,

lightweight, strong material.

If you look inside the little hole down there, you'll kind of see

the inner workings.

- Glass-reinforced plastic is layers of matted

glass fibre glued together with a strong plastic resin.

It's extremely easy to mould into complex shapes, like my bus

staircase, and, pound for pound, can be as strong as steel.

- On the outside, you'll see the high-gloss finish,

which is what the customer sees for the aesthetic look of it.

- Right. OK. So, it's light, but it's most certainly strong.

- Yes, absolutely. - It'd have to be if hundreds of people are going to go

up and down. - Yeah. - So, are we going to get it on there now?

- We are, Gregg. We could do with a hand getting it in.

Are you up for it? - Mate, I don't mind getting my hands dirty.

A simple remote control...

So, up first, right? - Up first.

- Whoa. Whoa!

..is all it takes to operate the electrically-powered crane...

- # Darlin', you got to let me know

# Should I stay or should I go?

- A little bit more forward, please, Gregg. - Whoa.

..and the 130kg staircase inches towards the bus.

Whoa! Whoa, you've only just cleared it.

It's a lot more difficult than it looks.

- That's it, keep going.

- Does it matter if the staircase blocks the driver's steering wheel?

After some expert coordination, the eight steps are lowered into place.

- # Should I stay or should I go? #

- Great job. - Is that it? - That is it.

- Yes! Come on!

THAT was ridiculously satisfying.

With the stairs perfectly in position, the team makes sure

they're going nowhere, securing them with 18 steel screws.

The buses we're making are packed full of modern technology

for the 21st century, but...

..double-deckers have been around for ages.

Ruth is stepping aboard the history of our bus.

- # People try to put us down

# Talking 'bout my generation

# Just because we get around... #

- These days, the bright-red London bus is one of the most iconic sights

of any city in the world.

But I'm going right back to the start

to find out about the history of the double-decker.

How on earth was this icon born?

First, let's step back 100 years when London's streets were filled

with the first motorised double-deckers, like the B-type,

which revolutionised public transport in the capital.

In search of its origins,

I'm hitching a ride on a vintage replica with historian Tim Dunn.

Blimey! This is a bit gorgeous, isn't it?

- Isn't it absolutely fab?

- Wow.

- I tell you what. Let's go upstairs, Ruth. Come aboard.

Welcome to the B-type bus.

- So, how far back does the history of the London double-decker bus go?

- Well, actually, it didn't start out with double-decker buses

cos the very first buses in London were in 1829

and these were omnibuses. They were horse-drawn single-deckers.

- So, where does this idea of getting the double-decker come from?

- Well, climbing up.

People are crowding up onto those roofs.

They're empty spaces.

You basically have actual formal top decks by the 1850s.

- By the end of the 19th century, the streets were packed

with more than 2,000 horse-drawn double-deckers.

But there was a problem.

- If you've got hundreds of thousands of horses using London's streets,

that's a lot of poo.

So, you can imagine the amount of stuff on the streets, the smell

and the sound of those hooves as well.

You know, people were crying out for an alternative.

- And that came in 1898 with the arrival of the first

petrol-powered double-decker - the German-designed Daimler.

They're crammed on there, aren't they? Look at that!

- They've got wooden wheels.

- The bus could only really fit 20 passengers,

with a leisurely top speed of just 12mph.

So, in 1910, the London General Omnibus Company designed a larger

and more reliable double-decker they called the B-type.

It had room for 34 passengers and could reach a healthy 16mph.

Ooh! We're off!

Bouncy, isn't it?

- SHE CHUCKLES

- Were London buses always red? - No, not at all.

In fact, the early years, they were all different colours.

Actually, it was one major company - the London General Omnibus Company -

that had its buses painted bright red.

Because they became the biggest company, they're the ones

that ended up becoming the red buses that we know today.

- Watch out!

- LAUGHTER

- By 1912, the red B-type was being mass-produced

and within just two years around 2,500 were in service.

The famous London double-decker motorbus had arrived.

- That was a lot of fun. Cheerio.

- But the outbreak of the First World War took the double-decker

on a very unexpected detour.

Anthony Saunders is hopping aboard...

Welcome aboard!

..to tell me about his grandfather, Harry,

who drove the number eight bus from Willesden to Old Ford.

Your grandfather was one of the very early motorbus drivers.

- Yes, he was.

That's Grandfather. - OK.

- That's Harry. - And, then, World War I breaks out. What happens?

- The call came out from the government saying

we need drivers and we need buses to go over to France and ferry

the troops around. - One day, you're driving a bus and, the next minute,

you're in the same bus... - Yes. - ..driving to the Somme.

- Within days, Harry and more than 300 volunteers signed up to drive buses

to France, where they were desperately needed to carry

exhausted troops to the front line and return injured men to safety.

- They arrive in France so quickly.

I mean, did they go out red? - Bright red, which is exactly

what you don't want on the battlefield.

- That can't have lasted, surely?

- No. So, very soon the buses were painted standard military khaki,

but also the windows were often shattered,

and you can see the buses have had their glass removed

and been replaced by boards.

- Over the course of the war, more than 1,000 buses

were put into service.

Drivers worked around the clock, living and sleeping

in their vehicles.

Some were even modified into mobile lofts for messenger pigeons.

- And what about your grandfather, Harry, what happened to him?

- Well, he spent two years driving his bus around the battlefields,

ferrying people around.

And here's a photo, in fact, of a number eight bus,

and I'm pretty sure this gentleman here is Harry.

But, then, unfortunately, towards the end of 1916,

he was gassed, and that made him quite ill,

so he had to be sent back home. - Right.

- Harry was lucky to make it back.

It's estimated that more than 1,400 transport staff lost their lives.

And at the end of the war in 1918, only one in five buses returned.

- And what about Harry's bus?

- A number eight. Harry's bus came

back and resumed its route from Willesden.

- The same route, even? - The same route.

- In London, the double-deckers received a hero's welcome.

Harry and his bus were even thanked by the King at Buckingham Palace.

- I think that after the horrors of the First World War, the people

of London were extremely glad to get their big, red, bright

double-decker buses back again.

- MUSIC: Semper Fidelis March by The US Marine Band

MUSIC: Parklife by Blur

Back inside the modern bus factory in Yorkshire,

we're making a fully electric

double-decker that will carry four times

the number of passengers that filled the B-type.

The staircase has been installed,

and nine square metres of 12mm-thick

plywood is screwed in place, creating the floor.

Our chassis isn't sitting on its wheels,

it's perched on trolleys resting on rails

bolted to the ground.

This keeps everything perfectly level during the build and allows

the buses to be pushed along

the seven stops of the assembly line.

- Right, Gregg, we're getting this

vehicle down to the next stage of build. - Sure. - And to do that,

we need to use the shunter. Pull it back to engage,

and then you push that forward,

and then you'll start to feel it go.

- Oh.

Oh, mate, look at that.

MUSIC: House of Fun by Madness

Once a day... Whoa, whoa!

..the team uses this clever bit of kit known as a shunter.

It contains a powerful electric motor, enabling the chassis

to be effortlessly nudged along the rails.

It is extraordinary that this little machine can push eight

tonnes of bus chassis.

- Absolutely. Modern technology.

- Just up to the yellow line? - Yeah, that's it.

- Oh! Oh, yes!

Whoa-ho! - Excellent.

- With the chassis expertly positioned, we're at stop two,

floor covering.

- OK, Gregg,

this is where we fit the finished floor that the customers

will walk on.

- And what is it, exactly?

- So it's lino. It has a silicon carbide in it, which kind of makes

it more durable and anti-slip. So it's a lot more robust,

a lot more tough than your standard lino

you'll just get in any kind of shop.

- Yeah, it's not shiny like I get in my kitchen, is it? - No.

- This man-made silicon carbide, commonly used in sandpaper, makes

the flooring extremely hardwearing.

And it needs to be,

as more than six million feet are expected to walk

on it in the bus's lifetime.

Is that sticky underneath?

- Yes, it's self-adhesive lino. The physical lino is marked out,

and then cut, and then the sticky-backed tape

is put down, one shot to get it right.

- But they know what they're doing, right? - Yes, they do.

- Well, this is coming together remarkably quickly.

Floor laid,

the next stage of production is adding the largest parts

of our bus - the 10.2m-long aluminium walls,

one on either side.

They're made from 100 individual aluminium panels of varying sizes,

put together across the site at the wall assembly building.

Steve Wardle is conducting proceedings.

Hello. - Hello, Gregg.

- Sorry to interrupt, but I recognise this.

- As you can see, this is the frame of the bus, and we're going

to assemble it and it becomes the side of the bus.

- How do we do it? - If you don't mind lining me that all up with that one.

- Sure, mate, yeah, yeah.

This isn't particularly heavy, it's just awkward. There?

- Yeah, that's absolutely spot on.

- Hang on, what's that? - A rivet.

- Whoa! - She's on.

- GREGG LAUGHS

Pneumatically-powered guns force

irreversible fixtures called rivets through the holes of the lightweight

aluminium to the frame behind, creating the inner walls of the bus.

- Would you like a go?

- Mate, I'd love to.

Right, stick it in the hole.

Ready? - Ready.

- Ho-ho-hey! Mate, you know what this is, don't you? - Go on.

- Riveting.

- Riveting.

- HE LAUGHS

One more, one more,

I'm having a field day here.

Unlike threaded bolts and screws, these rivets are wedged permanently

and won't loosen with vibration.

- There we go, go for that one.

- I'm making a bus.

- Bus chums.

- THEY LAUGH

110 rivets are needed for this single sheet of aluminium.

Isn't it great?

HE LAUGHS

Four speedy workers

use a further 1,800 rivets to secure 30 internal panels...

..in just 40 minutes!

Next, hardwearing plastic is added to protect the interior walls.

Lightweight insulation is fitted to what will become the exterior,

and a wiring loom to power any electrics.

After just eight hours,

we have two finished interior bus walls, 10.2m-long

and 4m-tall.

Fantastic! That was it, you've got the two sides of the bus together.

- We have. - That's the frame of a bus, right? - That is it.

- So is that the door there?

- It is, that's the centre door. After you, Gregg.

- Brilliant! So is this finished work, this panelling?

- Yeah, that's the final finish that you see on the bus.

- Is that the driver's bit? - That's where the driver will sit.

- Can I? - Yeah, of course.

- Hang on, I like this.

Big wing mirrors. - Yeah.

- Massive, big steering wheel. Wave to your mate

as he comes past in the opposite direction. - We're away!

- Yeah, I love that. Mate, thank you very much.

- It's been a pleasure, Gregg. - I've learnt a lot and that was great fun.

- Brilliant, mate, thank you. - It was great fun.

The walls for our electric bus are driven 260m to the main

assembly line, ready for the next stage of production.

The buses we're making will be charged by electricity

from Britain's National Grid,

and these days, the Grid is becoming more and more reliant

on renewable energy,

so Cherry's on a mission to learn how to harness the power

of the wind.

- I'm heading 12 miles off the Kent coast, where the Thames Estuary

meets the North Sea, to learn how wind accounts for as much

as a quarter of UK electricity generation.

Offshore wind turbines are heralded as one of the best sources

of clean energy.

And when it comes to wind farms, I've come to one of the biggest

on the planet!

This is the London Array...

..175 turbines covering an area of 38 square miles.

With blades reaching 147m,

each structure is taller than St Paul's Cathedral.

To find out how wind is converted into watts,

I'm joining Natalie Roberts and a team of engineers carrying out

annual maintenance on one of the turbines.

This is a breathtaking view.

It's weirdly beautiful to look at.

- Yeah, it's quite mesmerising, isn't it?

Seeing all the turbines operating, it makes a lot of sense to build

wind farms offshore.

There's less friction and less obstacles in the way for the wind,

so there's no buildings, no hills.

So you get a really nice flow of wind, which means that the wind

turbines operate at maximum efficiency.

- The UK is committed to removing all fossil fuels, like gas and coal,

from electricity generation by 2035,

and over the next decade,

the aim is to quadruple offshore wind capacity,

which means a lot more work for technicians like Stephen Curtis.

Are you ready to go up the wind turbine?

- More than ready.

- It's too dangerous for me to join them,

so I'm fitting them with body cameras so I can

follow their progress.

And, after a ten-minute climb, what a view!

- I feel like I'm on top of the world.

- On a good day, the blades on one

of these turbines rotate 17,000 times, generating

enough electricity to effectively power the average family home

for seven years!

- So it will rotate at about 12 revolutions a minute.

- Right, so that's quite fast.

- Quite fast, but not fast enough for the generator.

So then, there's a gearbox that will then speed

up that rotation, so by the time you're in the generator,

there's 1,500 revolutions per minute.

- Inside the generator,

the rotational energy provided by the wind turns a cylinder

with magnets attached to it,

called a rotor.

As it rotates, the magnets pass

by tightly coiled copper wires

called a stator.

The magnetic field from the magnets

excites electrons inside the wires,

creating an electrical current.

How on earth do you get the electricity from a wind turbine

in the middle of the sea into our homes on the mainland?

- We have a cable that comes out, goes under the sea

and across to the substation that you can see in the distance.

- To get the electricity from the turbines to the mainland

12 miles away, the electrical voltage must be increased

at this huge 40m-high substation.

- This is where all the cables all connect together,

and then two export cables then go to the onshore substation.

What's happening in this structure is that voltage is increased

from 33,000 volts to 150,000 volts.

- Voltage is effectively the push power that moves electrical current

along a wire. Inside the substation,

a clever bit of kit called a transformer increases the push

power using a series of wire coils.

- So we increase the voltage so that the electricity travels

as efficiently as possible down the cable to the mainland.

It's a bit like increasing the water pressure in a hosepipe.

- The high-voltage electricity travels from the substation to an onshore

station near Faversham in Kent

via two 31-mile-long, 22cm-thick

cables containing a copper core.

- They enter the land just over there,

they travel underground into the transformers.

The transformers will step up the electricity voltage

from 150,000 volts to 400,000 volts,

and then it will go into these overhead power lines

and onto the National Grid. - What is the National Grid?

- It's all the overhead cables and all the underground cables,

all connected up all across the country.

- So when I'm driving along and I see those power cables,

they could be transporting electricity from the wind farm?

- Absolutely.

- This single wind farm can generate enough electricity to power

up to half a million homes, and it joins growing solar

and hydroelectric contributions to the National Grid.

So when we turn on our lights, charge our car, or a London bus,

it's good to know that renewables are set to provide

more and more of our electricity in the future.

It's absolutely amazing to think that the electricity whizzing

through those cables behind me, would power everything from a light

bulb to a bus, began its life a fraction of a second ago,

far out at sea.

- MUSIC: One Step Beyond by Madness

Back in Scarborough,

the bus walls I helped assemble earlier have travelled to the main

assembly line and are ready to join the chassis.

I'm back with Chris to find out how it's done.

They're bringing the side of the bus.

How long is that? - 10.2m-long.

- This is becoming a bus amazingly quickly.

- Absolutely. The guys have already

pre-sealed the glass-reinforced plastic,

so when the side frames go against it, that's creating

a watertight seal as well as helping it sit into position.

- One minute - they're glueing the side of the bus on?

- No, the sealer is to help make sure

that the inside sits against the side frame correctly and seals that.

The actual physically fitting

of the side frames is done through the bolts down the bottom.

- Right, everything's going to be bolted on, is it? - Absolutely.

These guys are going to crack straight on,

bolts all the way down the side.

- I can't believe...honestly, that now is the side of a bus,

and it's happening with extraordinary speed.

- Yep, this is our Formula 1 pit crew.

- It takes 80 stainless steel bolts to secure the wall onto the chassis.

Next, a vital component called the interdeck is craned

along the assembly line.

It's the part that creates

the ceiling of the bottom deck

and the floor of the upper deck

and sits on brackets running

the length of the walls.

That's the top floor?

The 10m-long interdeck has an aluminium skin-and-foam core

and is floated in from above to join the wall.

- What we'll do is we'll bring the interdeck in. Where this rail

is across this side here, we'll tie the interdeck into that side.

- Two overhead cranes work together using electric winches to carefully

position the 450kg

interdeck with an accuracy of 2mm.

You like making buses, mate, don't you? - I love it.

- The interdeck is suspended by the cranes

until it can be permanently sandwiched in place

by the second wall.

- This is literally going to make the foundation of our bus.

If we get it wrong at this point, we're in big trouble.

- Other bits won't fit on properly?

- That's correct. - Is that right? - That's right, yeah.

And you don't want to be stripping a bus down to this.

- No. - No.

- And if it happens, someone's in trouble. - Absolutely. Normally me.

- And there's no margin for error.

Once glued, if the interdeck is just a few millimetres out,

the 28 bolts to secure it won't thread through

the precision-engineered holes.

- OK, Gregg, time to get on board the bus for the first time.

Come on in.

- I'm impressed!

Mate, I am really impressed.

You do this really quickly, this does now look like a bus.

All right, no windows, no chairs, but it's a bus. - Let's go.

- Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, this is great!

So what is your next stage here now -

are you literally going to get the roof on now?

- Well, you can see it coming down here, look. - Oh!

You're floating it in.

MUSIC: The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II

The roof has curved aluminium edges,

and houses speakers and fans inside,

yet it all weighs in at just under 650kg,

allowing it to glide elegantly into position.

- You may have to squat ever so slightly,

just let the roof pass above us.

- Mate, it's extraordinary.

So are they going to actually just crane it onto the supports?

- It's going to crane down and it's just going to land.

- I feel like I've been sealed in. - We are.

- The roof is carefully lined up to fit onto pins on top

of the wall pillars.

So with that crane, he's accurate enough to get those girders

into holes, like, that big? - Absolutely. - Impressive.

Very, very impressive.

It's fixed in place with 48 steel rivets.

And we finally have a roof on our double-decker.

This is great, isn't it?

There's so many big bits to fit together,

but they do, they all fit together

really accurately without too much hassle.

- Good designing, good people, gets you a good bus.

- And that good design means that, despite the height of the bus,

the weight of the chassis gives it rock-solid stability.

Next, front and rear moulded

sections are attached,

giving our electric bus

its sleek, modern shape.

Made from glass-reinforced plastic, just like the stairs,

they're incredibly lightweight.

The supporting structure of the whole bus is now in place,

but it's all a bit bare, so we cover

it up with an aluminium shell suit.

What's happening? - In this part of the build, we're putting

on the exterior panels.

- The actual outside of the bus?

- That's right, the element that will actually get painted.

- How does that get on there, then?

- So that panel needs lifting up and pressing onto the vehicle,

and if you're up for it, my friend, me and you will do it.

- OK. Oh, it's really light!

- Really, really, really, light. - Oh, my word! OK.

Although they're lightweight, once these exterior panels are glued

onto the support with polymer adhesive, they are super-strong.

- OK, where that yellow mark is on the pillar,

that is literally what you've got to aim for.

Just slightly to me.

And then we're going to lower it down.

- Ah! - OK.

And then just gently pat

the panel into position.

Excellent. Top job.

- Oh, I can honestly say now I've helped make a bus.

- You have, multiple times.

- Why have you got lots of little

panels and not just one great, big, long one?

- Well, you imagine if you had one big, long panel and the vehicle got

damaged, you'd have to rip the whole side of a bus off.

- Is that right? - Yeah, little panels, small bits of damage.

You can replace a panel very, very quickly and get the bus

back in service. - Of course, that makes so much sense, doesn't it?

- Yeah. - I don't know why, but I am ridiculously proud of that.

- Excellent. - Come on, next job. - Next job. - I'm excited now.

To complete both sides of the bus,

the team adds another 30 aluminium panels, and it takes six tubes

of glue to stick them on.

Our bus is really beginning to look like a bus,

but it's missing one vital bit.

Cherry's finding out how windscreens are made.

MUSIC: All Day And All Of The Night by The Kinks

- As every bus driver knows, a good windscreen protects them

from the elements so they can see the road ahead.

But it also needs to be safe.

Luckily, windscreens are made so that in the event of a smash...

- SHE LAUGHS

- ..the glass stays in place.

But how do you make a safe windscreen?

And how do you make one big enough for a double-decker bus?

Tyneside Safety Glass in Newcastle makes 50,000 windscreens a year

of all shapes and sizes.

Almost all vehicles in the UK that go over 25mph must

have a glass-and-plastic film laminated windscreen.

So for the lowdown on glass for a bus, I'm meeting managing

director Chris Hannant.

Hi, Chris, lovely to meet you!

- Hi. Hi.

- A giant bus windscreen,

how do we make one of those?

- Right, we buy sheets of glass.

- That is a huge piece of glass, how big is that?

- That's 3.2 by 2.2m.

- These huge sheets are made by melting sand,

soda ash, limestone

and other ingredients in a giant furnace

at around 1,500 degrees Celsius...

..arriving here as delicate as a wine glass.

Why can't you just put this sheet of glass on the front of a bus?

- Because if there was an impact, it would just shatter and break

into very large, dangerous pieces of glass.

It's really fragile at this point.

- How thin is it? - This piece of glass is 3mm-thick.

We've got to laminate the product,

so lamination is a minimum of two pieces of glass.

- Before the glass can be laminated,

it's cut to fit the modern bus design,

which is anything but square.

A computer-controlled cutter is diamond-tipped, one of the few

materials harder than glass, to carefully score

a 0.18mm groove into the surface.

It's just running across the surface of the glass.

Why do you score it - why not cut it properly?

- If you go right through, it'll just break the glass,

so what you have to do is just score it and then gently break

it out by hand,

leaving the shape of the windscreen.

- The edges are rounded by a computer-controlled

milling machine to make it safer to handle,

before a huge digital printer applies a black edge made

from a ceramic enamel known in the trade as a frit.

So I see these dots on every vehicle,

I've seen them in my car, they're very familiar.

I've no idea what they do.

- OK, so what the ceramic frit is applied for is

to stop the UV rays attacking the bonding agent for the windscreen.

- So when they glue this into the bus, sunlight hits that glue,

it disintegrates? - That's right.

And potentially it could loosen the windscreen, which could

ultimately then fall out.

- To make a laminated safety windscreen, we need two

sheets of glass.

Both are lowered onto a metal mould in a furnace, and a powder is used

to stop them fusing together at this stage.

Inside the oven, they're heated to 620 degrees Celsius...

..softening the glass so it can be shaped.

Two hours later, the sheets emerge in the form of the finished

windscreen, but the glass is still very fragile.

- This is where they're getting the interlayer ready. - Interlayer?

- Yeah. - What do you mean?

- It's polyvinyl butyral, which is used to laminate

the two glasses together.

- Is that a kind of plastic? - Yes.

That's what gives the windscreen its real strength.

- It's almost like a sandwich, and this is the filling.

- Exactly. - Without this filling, it's really dangerous.

- That's it. That's what's used to bond the two glasses together.

- Slight problem.

You want to use this for a bus windscreen? - Yeah.

All interlayer is opaque, and we'll deal with that later.

- Next, the drum wiring machine spins a fine tungsten wire heating system

into the 0.8mm-thick plastic interlayer, which will sit

between our two sheets of glass.

That is thinner than a human hair.

Tungsten's excellent thermal properties mean it can radiate heat

when connected to the bus's electrics,

melting away any ice on the windscreen.

To add this high-tech super metal requires a suitably pristine room.

I feel like we've stepped inside NASA, this is clearly very skilled.

The sheets of curved glass are carefully separated and cleaned

to remove any dust.

Before the plastic-and-tungsten meat in our sandwich is carefully laid

between the glass.

Edges are trimmed and the bus windscreen is ready for the final

stage of production.

Chris, where are we taking these?

- We're taking these now to the autoclave.

- What's an autoclave?

- An autoclave is what windscreens need to be put into

to have pressure, heat and vacuum applied to them.

Vacuuming is a very important part of the process to ensure

that all of the air's removed

from the windscreens and changes them from opaque to see-through.

- It's basically a giant pressure cooker? - Exactly.

- The windscreens stay in the autoclave for four hours

at 140 degrees Celsius and ten bar of pressure.

That's ten times more than the pressure cooker in your kitchen.

The process bonds the interlayer between the two sheets of glass

and turns it transparent.

Is this it, is it finished? - This is it, it's all ready.

- Oh, my gosh! I mean, it's pristine.

- It is. So this is good to go,

and it should be absolutely perfect.

- The plastic interlayer is completely clear, and I can even see the fine

tungsten heating element sandwiched within it.

This windscreen is now ready to keep the bus driver really safe

and to protect them against the worst of the British weather.

All aboard! Beep, beep!

- MUSIC: Peaches by The Stranglers

Back at the factory in Scarborough, 48 workers have already

worked their magic on this bus, and now it's shunting

along the assembly line for the fifth time in five days,

arriving at bus stop six...

BELL CHIMES

..where it's finally lowered off the trolleys

and onto its own wheels.

The side panels, interdeck,

roof and front and rear panels

have been assembled

to 2mm precision,

and now the bus is ready for its 2.5 by 1.4m laminated windscreen.

- So we're at the point now,

Gregg, where we're going to fit the windscreen.

- Can I touch it? - Yes, absolutely.

- That's actually a beautiful thing, isn't it?

- Yeah, you can see the contours of the glass that goes

down and round to match the front end of the vehicle. - Well, obviously,

that's a big, heavy bit of glass. How does it get onto the bus?

- The first thing they're going to do is they're going to put

sealant all the way across and round. - Really?

- Follow me inside the vehicle, we can watch them do it.

- MUSIC: (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) by The Stranglers

Another super-strong polymer glue is piped around the frame to provide

a watertight seal.

- The weight of the glass, it needs to be able to hold it instantly,

so the material that we're using, it grabs it straight away,

so, obviously, the glass doesn't slip down.

- Is it just the glue that's holding the glass?

- Absolutely.

- The glue will take two days to set,

permanently sealing in the 54kg windscreen.

That's it! That is beautiful, isn't it? - Yep,

the guys will take the lifters away, and the glass is now sat in place.

- Ha-ha-ha! That is brilliantly simple,

a great, big whack of windscreen.

Biggest windscreen I've ever seen stuck on a bus by glue.

Further down the line, and upstairs, 14 1.4m-wide toughened glass

side windows are being fitted with the same sealant glue,

while downstairs work is under way on the main entrance.

Right. Yay! The doors, the front doors.

- So we're now at the stage where the front doors are being fitted.

- You don't glue them in, then?

- No, these have to be fixed and torqued and bolted correctly.

The first door leaf has already been fitted.

- Door leaf? - Yeah, that's the terminology.

- Do you call them that because people "leaf"?

LAUGHS: - I don't know where the phrase comes from.

- Bolts are used to install the two door leafs onto an electrically

operated sliding entry mechanism.

Hey. Hey!

That reminds me of a shower door. STEVE LAUGHS

It's the same principle, innit? Look.

- Yep. So what basically happens is,

when the driver presses the button,

he sends a signal to this motor to release air

into this piston here, which will then make that bar extend,

which will then make the doors swing in.

- It's built to last for 15 years, or one million door openings,

before it'll need to be replaced.

Isn't it incredible that so much of the work goes into the doors?

- Absolutely. Let's go.

- Inside, 65 seats are screwed into place,

23 downstairs and 42 up top.

They're upholstered in a 4mm-thick carpet-like fabric

called moquette.

Particularly hardwearing,

it's been used on buses for around 100 years,

but we're fitting a much more modern invention

to the front of this electric bus.

- What do you think this is. - That, I reckon, is the horn. "Beep!"

- No, this is the AVAS system, Acoustic Vehicle Alert System.

Because the vehicle is battery-powered, it makes no noise,

so we have to make a simulation of noise.

- You put an attachment to your bus to make it sound like a bus?

- Absolutely.

People have got to be able to hear it coming.

- Once the bus is powered and moving, the speaker will emit

this ambient sound effect.

SOUND EFFECT PLAYS

This particular noise was chosen by Transport for London

because it has a suitably futuristic sound.

Ha-ha! Listen, I know that's practical and it makes sense,

but it is funny, come on.

STEVE CHUCKLES

- That's it.

- GREGG LAUGHS

There are around 22,000 double-deckers

on our roads, of all colours.

Pink in Belfast, blue in Brighton,

orange and green in Cardiff.

But, as we all know, the London bus is red.

Cherry is picking up her spray gun to learn how these huge vehicles

are given their shiny coats.

MUSIC: 20th Century Boy by T Rex

- I'm in the bus factory's very own paint shop, ready to see

how a colourful icon is born.

So here we are, a huge, 11m-long,

4m-high double-decker bus.

We're going to need a pretty big paintbrush.

Paint shop team leader Ray Clarkson has been transforming double-deckers

for 42 years.

Ray, lovely to meet you. - And yourself.

- What an enormous and very beautiful bus... - It is.

- ..but slightly naked, something's missing. What's the first step?

- First step is to start masking it.

We go on, so you'll start the vehicle.

- Ray, I have to admit to you, when I paint at home, I normally skip

this bit and I get really told off.

- This is one of the critical parts of the operation

of what we have to do.

- So here we go.

- And keeping the line straight.

- Oh. Oh. Not done that well.

This is why I miss this bit out.

Unlike my homespun attempts at decorating, the team

here really do believe that preparation is key.

And for this most modern of buses, it seems that old-fashioned graft

by hand is best, too.

It takes four of them three hours to apply more than 1,000m

of masking tape and 25m of plastic sheeting

to protect the glass.

The bus is driven into one of the 13 giant paint booths.

But there's yet more preparation

before it gets its famous red coating.

A beige-textured etch primer paint is sprayed on,

providing a rough surface for the gloss topcoat to grab onto.

Well, Ray, the bus looks beautiful and primed and perfect,

but still not red. - Still not red.

Very shortly, the lads are going to be painting it.

- But surely I can help? I'm in my painting gear, I'm ready to go.

- Unfortunately, no.

- Ray won't let me tackle the big bus,

so we watch outside the sealed booth as four specialist painters apply

the solvent-based topcoat in a fine mist, using air-powered spray guns.

- Years back, it was all brush-painted,

you'd use a paintbrush, a paint roller, painting the vehicles.

- 10L of glorious red paint is used for every bus.

What paint do you use to paint the bus red?

- It's been stipulated by London Transport

that they want Pantone reference 485 C.

- Does it have another name? - We just call it London Bus Red.

- If only painting at home was that easy.

I love that they've got lifts that take them not only left

and right, but up and down.

It's a very efficient system, isn't it? - It is, yes.

- HE LAUGHS

- The main body of the bus is now complete,

but there's one important bit missing...

..and Ray is letting me have a go at painting it.

Right, Ray, what are we painting?

- That's an inspection hatch that goes on the side of the vehicle.

- Let's paint something, Ray, with your ray gun.

- HE LAUGHS

- I spray on a 0.1mm-thick layer of tough and durable

solvent-based paint.

Woo! We did it! - Fantastic.

- And 24 hours after leaving the main production line, the radiant red bus

emerges from the paint booth.

Oh, wow, look at that!

- Panel goes on...

..and we're there. - I mean, it looks like a professionally done

bit of bus.

- It's the best part of the job. - It's the best part of the bus!

- HE LAUGHS

- That's really beautiful and really satisfying.

- All complete. - Wonderful.

- MUSIC: Metal Guru by T Rex

Cheers, Cherry.

The shiny bus is very nearly complete as it heads to the final

stop on the production line...

BELL CHIMES

..the finishing lanes, where it's fitted out with electrical

accessories and energy-efficient LED front headlights,

which use half the power of the old halogen lamps.

Cameras have even replaced wing mirrors.

All wired up,

I get to see my bright-red electric double-decker for the first time.

Yeah, I know you see them all the time, but that is beautiful.

- Beautiful. - And for anybody, a Londoner like me,

or anyone who's ever visited

London, that is instantly recognisable.

Can I go on? - Absolutely.

- That's fabulous, isn't it?

Brand-spanking-new bus.

Even though there's some modifications and stuff,

and this one's electric, it's still the same shape as any bus

I've ever been on. - Yeah, it's still recognisable as a bus, yeah.

- Missing a bit here.

- One part left to fit.

Willing to help? - Yeah, I'd love to.

- No wires, a wireless bell push.

- Oh, no wire at all? That's clever. - Yeah. - You got it.

When pushed, the button triggers a radio signal to the bus's

electrical system, sounding a bell for the driver.

- And there is one last really important thing I need you to do.

- Test it? - Test it. - Are you ready?

BELL CHIMES

- Ding, ding. Round one.

- LAUGHS: That is fabulous!

Do you know the route that this bus is going to do?

- Yeah, this route is destined for Route 65, which is Ealing Broadway

to Kingston. - Ah! I used to live near Kingston.

- Nice place? - Well, it would have been

nicer with brand-new electric buses running about.

STEVE LAUGHS

Shall I ring one more time? - Yes, please.

- BELL CHIMES

- Perfect. - Ha-ha-ha, come on!

- Brilliant.

- MUSIC: Magic Bus by The Who

It takes a meticulous 23 days to complete every one

of these cutting-edge electric double-deckers.

Finally, everything is checked and cleaned by a team of valets,

from top to bottom, inside and out.

- I've got one more really important

job I could do with your hand with. - Yeah, sure.

- That's just driving a finished vehicle out of the factory.

- Ha-ha-ha, you're kidding? - I'm not kidding. You up for it?

- What, drive the bus? - Yeah. - I would love to drive the bus.

GREGG CHUCKLES

- In you go. - No!

Right. OK.

- Press "D", we go blue,

so we confirm you to drive mode.

And then on the right-hand side there, Gregg, there is a handbrake,

you need to lift the little collar up, press it forward.

- Right, so is that now ready? - Yeah, you're ready to go. - Whoa!

And where are we going? - So we need to go forward, and then

just through that door there and take this vehicle for delivery.

- No! That gap's just about as wide as the bus!

MUSIC: London Calling by The Clash

Hold very tightly!

Oh, my word, the size of this beast.

Right, swing it round.

- That's it.

- I'm on the turn, and didn't it turn well?

- Straighten up so much.

Yeah, wait there, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait.

That's it now. Bring it back round. Wait.

That's it. Straight. Straighten your wheel. Fully straight.

- Whoa! The side...are you sure I'm not going to scrape...?

- Keep your wheel straight now, don't change it in any direction.

And straight down to the driver dispatch area, Gregg.

Straighten her up.

- Mate, I'm driving a bus!

Ha-ha-ha!

- You're doing a fantastic job.

- Get out of here!

HORN BEEPS

I'm loving this. Should we go down to Scarborough town?

- Get some passengers.

- Yeah, get some fish and chips.

- Make some money, me and you.

- Is that enough? - That's it, that'll do us great.

- It's just brilliant!

I mean, that's it, for the next couple of years, I'm just going to

point out every bus and go, "I've driven one of them."

STEVE LAUGHS

Open the door, turn it off. Oh, wow!

Thank you so, so...ha-ha-ha-ha!

- Well done.

- And breathe.

MUSIC: Town Called Malice by The Jam

They don't hang around.

As soon as I step off,

another driver gets on to drive the bus south.

From the factory in Yorkshire,

the double-deckers are driven

250 miles to a depot

in southwest London, stopping once on the way to charge the batteries.

When in service, they'll pick up passengers all over south, west

and north London.

Each one will travel up to 170 miles a day,

ferrying around 600 passengers, before being charged overnight.

I love the thought that the buses I've seen made here could soon

be whisking passengers quietly through the streets of London,

and it's amazing to think that one of these vehicles could travel

as far as 40,000 miles in a single year.

And do you know what's really amazing is they let me drive one

of these huge machines out of the factory door,

and not a single scratch in sight.