Discovery Industrial Revelations Best of British_6of6_Transport Networks
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00:00Who's the best in the world at engineering?
00:28Well from the steam engine to the internal combustion engine, from cast iron to the suspension
00:33bridge, from steel ships to the Harrier junk jet, British inventions top the league.
00:40Look very carefully and you'll find that we British have been behind almost every advance
00:45that has shaped the modern world.
00:53Take the huge strides in getting from A to B.
00:56It's not just that the cars and trains and ships and planes travel faster and faster,
01:01it's the networks and infrastructure that allow them to hurtle around at huge speeds.
01:06A group of experts have pointed me towards five iconic bits of transport engineering
01:12which they think best reflect Britain's huge contribution in this area.
01:16And we begin with a small engineered city, a wonderful icon, though sadly the only time
01:24most people mention it is to moan about it.
01:29Most famous airport in the world, the busiest international airport on the planet.
01:36Today I'm in a place where 68,000 people work, in a year they each look after a thousand
01:41people.
01:42That's 68 million people, more than the population of the British Isles, all using this, the
01:47world's busiest crossroads, Heathrow.
01:53A jet takes off from or lands at London Heathrow every 45 seconds.
01:58Hundreds of carriers with pilots from every nation under the sun.
02:02It's a minor miracle that there aren't several crashes every week.
02:06Miracle workers live up here, this is Heathrow's brand new control tower, the most advanced
02:11in the world.
02:15In the early days of flight, air traffic control was more rudimentary, it involved a lot of
02:19waving your arms about and shouting.
02:23These days there are flashing lights and buttons and things, but it can't be that complicated
02:29because they're going to let me have a whack at bringing in a jumbo.
02:34We're not telling the passengers of course, watch out Hounslow, right.
02:42OK, just kidding, I'm actually in one of the snazziest wraparound air traffic simulators
02:50in the world.
02:53This is a fantastic piece of machinery, this simulator, is this state of the art?
02:56Yeah, this is a brand new state of the art simulator.
02:58So if we're flying say, towards Windsor Castle, we'll see Windsor Castle, we'll see the Bristol
03:03Channel.
03:03It's got the whole world programmed into the software, so you can go on magic carpet rides.
03:06If I could fly over my house in one of these.
03:08Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
03:09For the next generation of flight controllers, there won't be anything they haven't seen
03:13here first.
03:15Virgin 380, line up and wait runway 27 left.
03:20If you look out the window now, you'll see the Virgin start to line up on the runway.
03:25Virgin 380, you're cleared for take off on runway 27 left.
03:30If on Virgin flight 380, a pretty young stewardess pours boiling coffee into the lap of the captain,
03:35this thing will simulate the effect on the aircraft as the poor man grapples with his
03:39joystick.
03:43The Virgin 380 has rolled down the runway.
03:44That's the plane that I've taken off.
03:46Pretending you can't see me, look.
03:51Let's just watch it off then.
03:53Nearly 10,000 big jets take off or land here every week, but when Heathrow began its life
03:58as a civil airport just after the war, it handled just 200 little planes with propellers.
04:06And believe it or not, the first terminal was an army surplus tent.
04:10But things soon changed.
04:13In 1949, we Brits invented the Comet, the world's first ever passenger jet plane.
04:19The world was getting richer, and international travel was opening up to more and more people.
04:26London was ideally situated as an international hub linking America with Europe and Asia.
04:33The newfangled jet needed longer runways, and more passengers meant a bigger and better
04:38airport.
04:41Sadly one of the most extraordinary bits of Heathrow is buried underground, a sprawling
04:46maze of tunnels.
04:49Filled with clanky robots and little trains, reaching speeds of 60 kilometres an hour,
04:54this is the land of the bags.
04:59When your silver suitcase disappears through the little plastic curtain, this is where
05:04it goes, to meet thousands and thousands of other cases, filled with knickers and guidebooks
05:09and insect repellent.
05:12Every year, over 100 million bags and cases whiz through these tunnels, and amazingly
05:17almost all of them get where they're supposed to.
05:20Now that's a really impressive bit of transport engineering.
05:27Like so much of Britain, Heathrow wasn't planned. It grew organically in a higgledy-piggledy
05:33way.
05:34It doesn't have the fancy plastic tubes of Paris Charles de Gaulle, or the Barbarella
05:39Curves of New York's JFK.
05:43It's British. It's not pretty, but it's sensible, and it works.
05:49Although as we can see in the new Terminal 5, we can sometimes rise to the occasion.
05:54Look at this. That is Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 and 3, and Number 4 over there.
06:00I know what you're thinking. What a shambles. What an absolute mess that is.
06:05But look at this.
06:08Terminal 5. Isn't that great? Neat, elegant, tidy.
06:13The new terminal building, designed by Richard Rogers, is also typically British.
06:21Inasmuch as it took 13 long years of futile wrangling before it got past the planners.
06:27Amazingly, the site of Terminal 5, T5 as they call it, is 260 hectares, which is one Hyde Park.
06:38The AA's Mike Forster has agreed to escort me around.
06:43Right, so we've parked our car, Mike. We're about to go off on a big long-haul flight.
06:47I've got it nice and handy. That's the first thing that strikes me.
06:50It's 30 metres away, and actually the passengers coming over will come over a glass skybridge,
06:54over a landscaped area with fountains of trees.
06:57Beautiful.
06:58And then this is the first sight they get of the terminal.
07:00This is amazing. I mean, what can I say? It's a big roof.
07:04It is. It's the largest single span in Europe. It gives this first wow effect.
07:08The passenger coming in gets this great roof, but actually gets this space laid out before them.
07:14Coming here has made me realise what a really impressive engineering achievement this new terminal is.
07:20They had to divert two rivers to make way for it.
07:23There are new rail and tube links, car parks and a new hotel.
07:27Terminal 5 has put London Heathrow in a league of its own.
07:34If planet Earth has a centre, then it's LHR.
07:37This is the hub of the world, a global 21st century bus stop.
07:43So instead of moaning about the noise, let's shove on the earmuffs
07:46and celebrate having the biggest, the best, the most famous international airport ever built.
07:58For thousands of years, humans have clustered around rivers.
08:02Before the age of tarmac and rail, they were the natural arteries of economic life.
08:08The trouble is, what happens if the river doesn't go where you want it to go?
08:13If you're a pioneering, can-do early British industrialist, you build your own.
08:23Picture the scene.
08:25It's the mid-1700s, before the Industrial Revolution has really kicked in.
08:31The British have realised for the first time in human history
08:34that there's buckets of cash to be made from turning raw materials into finished products on a large scale.
08:42Arkwright is dreaming of building the first ever factory.
08:45And you're a landowner, Francis Edgerton, the young Duke of Bridgewater,
08:49who happens to find a pile of coal on the estate.
08:52Coal which will soon power the machines inside the new factories.
08:57But the success story starts behind this rock face.
09:00That's where the coal was, the source of Edgerton's fortune.
09:03And that's where our journey begins.
09:06There's only one hitch.
09:08The coal is in Worsley, near Eccles, and the factories will be in Manchester, seven miles away.
09:15The answer? To revive an ancient Roman invention, the canal.
09:20When you think of canals, you normally think of industry, of grim northern towns, of labour and toil.
09:26But the inspiration for this canal is altogether more continental and romantic.
09:33In the 1750s, Edgerton was touring the ancient ruins of Europe
09:37when he met and fell in love with a pretty French waterway, the Canal du Midi.
09:46But back in London, he forgot about the canal and switched his affections to a scrummy bit of hot stuff called Elizabeth Gunning.
09:54Happily, for the future course of human civilisation, she chucked him.
09:59Dejected and spurned, Francis returned north and channelled his passion into making money.
10:06He realised that if there was a canal between Worsley and Manchester, he would make a fortune.
10:13So Bridgewater set about building the first canal of the industrial era.
10:18Canal buff Harry Arnold shows me the route.
10:22Cast off, Rory.
10:23Aye, Captain.
10:24Aye, Captain.
10:25Now, the ancient Romans were a clever bunch,
10:27and Bridgewater soon realised that building canals wasn't as simple as it first appeared.
10:33So to help him do it, he hired James Brindley, the most famous water engineer in Britain.
10:39What a lovely day for it, Harry.
10:40Beautiful, isn't it?
10:41Aye.
10:43Of course, the barges in those days had no engines because they hadn't been invented.
10:47But Harry hasn't got a horse, so we'll just have to imagine.
10:50Brindley was a true pioneer, a man of great instinct and energy.
10:54He saw obstacles as challenges.
10:57He worked largely from memory, so there are very few records of his workings left,
11:00but it's clear that the Bridgewater Canal tested all his engineering skills.
11:04And fortunately, he was up to it.
11:07Harry, what do you think Brindley brought to the project?
11:09He was an expert in mills and the movement of water.
11:12As simple as that, he was one of our first major national engineers.
11:16The entire canal had to be dug by navigators, or navvies, using shovels, picks and barrows.
11:23Incredibly, it took just two years to build the first seven miles between Worsley and Salford,
11:28and it opened in 1761.
11:32Seems a silly thing to ask, but how does the water stay in and why doesn't it leak away?
11:36Stuff called clay puddle.
11:38There's a certain type of clay which you can dig out of the ground from clay pits,
11:42and you mix it with water and you basically tamp it down.
11:45People do this with boots, shovels, and even herds of cows do this over the water,
11:49and it seals the bottom of the canal.
11:50Excellent.
11:57The first stretch of canal was over flat country,
11:59but when Brindley came to expand the network, he ran into hills.
12:02So he worked out a route which wound round them so elegantly,
12:06he didn't need to construct a single lock.
12:09But then an odd problem, you might think.
12:12Brindley hit a river.
12:14How does a canal cross a river?
12:16How else? Over a bridge.
12:25So Brindley copied the Romans once more and built an aqueduct over the River Irwell.
12:31The Barton Aqueduct was the engineering marvel of its day,
12:34attracting thousands of awe-struck visitors.
12:38Sadly, the stone aqueduct was demolished when the River Irwell was expanded
12:41to become the Manchester Ship Canal.
12:43However, the aqueduct was replaced by something even more amazingly clever,
12:48the Barton Swing Aqueduct.
12:51Now look at this. Up there is the Bridgewater Canal.
12:54Behind that iron wall is the canal with my boat on it.
12:57Look, some of it's dribbling down the side here.
12:59It's rather worrying standing here.
13:00This is what's going to happen.
13:01This bridge over here, this big grey thing,
13:03that has a section of canal on it, that has water in the bottom of it,
13:06that's going to swing around, join up with the Bridgewater Canal,
13:09open the gates, and off we go to the distance.
13:11I can't think of any other place in the world where that's going to happen.
13:14It's going to happen.
13:15It's going to happen.
13:16It's going to happen.
13:17It's going to happen.
13:18It's going to happen.
13:19It's going to happen.
13:20It's going to happen.
13:21It's going to happen.
13:22It's going to happen.
13:23It's going to happen.
13:24It's going to happen.
13:25It's going to happen.
13:26It's going to happen.
13:27It's going to happen.
13:28It's going to happen.
13:29It's going to happen.
13:30It's going to happen.
13:31It's going to happen.
13:32It's going to happen.
13:33It's going to happen.
13:34It's going to happen.
13:35It's going to happen.
13:36It's going to happen.
13:37It's going to happen.
13:38It's going to happen.
13:39It's going to happen.
13:40It's going to happen.
13:41It's going to happen.
13:42It's going to happen.
13:43It's going to happen.
13:44It's going to happen.
13:45It's going to happen.
13:47Look out, Manchester.
13:48It's not moving at all.
13:50It's a joke, isn't it, at my expense.
13:52This actually isn't connected to anything.
13:54Oh, there it goes.
14:01It all seems to be going OK.
14:05Oh, don't stand there, sir.
14:06Oh, dear, what a shame.
14:09Beautiful, that.
14:10Smooth as silk.
14:1171 casualty.
14:14The canal cost the Duke a fortune,
14:16£20 million in today's money.
14:20But along bumpy, muddy roads,
14:22it took 15 horses to haul 30 tonnes of coal to Manchester.
14:26By canal, it took one horse,
14:28and he did it a lot quicker.
14:31Now, it was a huge investment, wasn't it?
14:33It was a huge investment.
14:36Now, it was a huge investment, wasn't it?
14:38A big project like this is expensive.
14:40Did it pay for itself?
14:41It did.
14:42That's one of the things about the Bridgewater.
14:44Not only was it the most successful canal of the canal area,
14:47it was the most successful private investment.
14:49It was totally privately financed
14:51and made a lot of money for the Duke.
14:56Today, we call it excess profits.
14:58We wag our fingers and tut-tut
15:00and think up a special tax.
15:02But back in the 18th century,
15:04the prospect of making oodles of cash
15:06encouraged men like Bridgewater
15:08to gamble their entire livelihoods on madcap schemes
15:10like building a canal.
15:12And what was the result?
15:13Within a year of the canal opening,
15:15the price of coal had plunged by two-thirds.
15:18Coal became affordable,
15:20fuelling industry and heating the homes of ordinary folk.
15:25Now, we're just about to go past
15:26one of the greatest football grounds in the world.
15:29Oh, sorry, no, my mistake.
15:30It's Manchester United.
15:34The extraordinary canal network,
15:35the most extensive in the world,
15:37fanned out, creating a new industrial Britain.
15:41Coal, iron, steel, timber, bricks, textiles, coffee,
15:44anything and everything took to the water.
15:48Nowadays, the old warehouses and factories
15:50along the canal side have been converted
15:52into swanky flats for footballers' wives.
15:54But it's not hard to imagine what it must have been like
15:56back in the days of Edgerton, Brindley.
16:04Today, canals are where we go to fish
16:06and walk off a heavy Sunday lunch.
16:08But these pretty little waterways
16:10were among the first great achievements of the modern age.
16:13They changed the world.
16:16Manchester, Harry, at last.
16:18Still no rain.
16:19No, the sun does shine in Manchester.
16:21Thank you so much, that was excellent.
16:22Thank you.
16:23We really enjoyed showing you some of the British water canal.
16:25It's wonderful, thanks so much.
16:26I'll be back in about three hours, OK?
16:27Then we'll go back.
16:28You're welcome.
16:29Canals made coal cheap,
16:31and cheap coal changed the world.
16:33People now used it to heat their homes
16:35and boil their kettles.
16:38And from kettles came steam.
16:41And from steam came one of the biggest,
16:43brightest ideas in human history.
16:48The golden age of canals was short-lived.
16:50By the mid-19th century,
16:52a new invention had revolutionised transport.
16:54A steam engine.
16:58The invention of the engine, when you think of it,
17:00was a pretty big deal.
17:02First, there's James Watt, staring at his kettle,
17:05dreaming of steam power.
17:07Then along comes George Stevenson.
17:09Takes the kettle, attaches carriages and a buffet,
17:12and bingo, you've got a train.
17:14The only thing missing is leaves on the line.
17:20So far, so good.
17:21But before you can start selling away
17:23to a family saver returns,
17:24you need something else.
17:29When it comes to the railway age,
17:31trains get all the glory.
17:34But just as great an engineering feat
17:36was the railroad itself.
17:40Our next icon is 165 years old,
17:42was once 3,800 miles long,
17:44and still carries over 20 million people every year.
17:49And it was one of the great engineering marvels
17:51of the 19th century.
17:54One railway in particular enthralled the general public.
17:57The GWR, or Great Western Railway.
18:00Soon to be known as God's Wonderful Railway.
18:03And it was considered the crowning achievement
18:05of its young engineering chief,
18:07Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
18:13When he was only 26 years old,
18:15Brunel was charged with building
18:16the world's first great railway line.
18:21Until this time, rail had been used
18:23only for very short distances.
18:26But Brunel ended up linking London
18:28with the Midlands and with the West Country.
18:32Brunel had a vision of a completely interlinked network.
18:35Something that could expand throughout Britain
18:37and beyond our shores by connections
18:39to his steamship services.
18:40Why stop at Bristol, he said?
18:42Why not design something that can go as far as New York?
18:53Isambard was at once a head in the clouds visionary
18:56and also Britain's greatest
18:57practical problem-solving engineer.
19:00Among his admirers is Adrian Vaughan,
19:02a former signalman who has written
19:04several books on Brunel.
19:07Adrian, why do you think the Great Western Railway
19:09is such an amazing piece of engineering?
19:12Brunel makes 118 miles of railway
19:16and there is hardly a steep gradient
19:19in the entire thing.
19:21I think that is what's amazing.
19:23Also, it is...
19:25Given it's 118 miles long,
19:27it's very nearly straight.
19:35Mounted on horseback, Brunel spent three months
19:37cantering through the Thames Valley,
19:39seeking out the straightest, flattest route westwards.
19:47So tell me, Adrian,
19:48why exactly are you dragging me up this steep hill?
19:51Well, we are retracing the steps of Mr Brunel,
19:54who would have come up here on his horse
19:57so that he could spy out the whole of the valley.
20:00And he actually did it himself, in person?
20:02He came here in person
20:04because he needed to know the general run
20:07of how he was going to carry this railway through.
20:11Over many thousands of years,
20:13the River Thames had helpfully gouged out
20:15a beautifully flat valley for Brunel.
20:17Sadly, it meanders all over the place,
20:20so he was forced to build a series of bridges.
20:23The trains come zooming through the valley.
20:26They leap the river.
20:28It has all the elan of a cavalry charge.
20:32Do you think he envisaged that trains would go that speed?
20:35He did say that one day
20:38we will travel at 45 miles an hour
20:40whilst taking our coffee.
20:42A wild thing.
20:47So what kind of practical problems
20:49did Brunel face building this railway?
20:51Our series engineer Claire Barrett, I discover,
20:54is a bit of a steam buff herself.
20:56And I find her mucking about with a traction engine.
20:59So Claire, this is a traction engine,
21:01which is an engine that pulls things.
21:03What's it got to do with the Great Western Railway?
21:06Well, I wasn't allowed to smuggle a steam engine into Paddington.
21:09So this is the best way to explain to you
21:11Brunel's difficulty in building GWR
21:14and the way he had to get it so, so flat.
21:17Well, there you go.
21:19Ladies first, surely.
21:21Do you need a bun cup or anything?
21:23No, I think I'll be fine.
21:25Terry, good to meet you.
21:26Thanks for meeting us.
21:27OK. Heathrow, please.
21:29I'm taking the wheel while Claire's going to backseat drive.
21:33Right, off we go.
21:35OK, Terry.
21:36You all right there, Rory?
21:38Yeah, going at this speed is fantastic, Marie.
21:41We're heading on up the hill.
21:43And Brunel's problem was that his steam trains available
21:46couldn't climb hills like this.
21:49Why was that then?
21:50Couldn't get the traction between the wheels and the rails.
21:52It just kept slipping.
21:54So this beast slowly trundles uphill
21:56because it has thick covered wheels
21:58and is running over rough tarmac.
22:02What's the top speed of this machine, Terry?
22:053 miles and 6 miles an hour.
22:085 and 6 miles an hour.
22:10Come on, go for it!
22:14Brunel's trains had thin iron wheels
22:16and ran on thin iron rails,
22:18which made them much faster
22:20but gave them as much grip as a penguin wearing baby oil.
22:25So Brunel hated hills.
22:27Anything more than a gradient of 1 in 100
22:29had him reaching for the dynamite.
22:34It was only later when steam trains were fitted
22:36with more sophisticated gearing mechanisms
22:38that they could start tackling a gradient.
22:40But it was too late.
22:42Most of Britain's railway system
22:44had been laid out with a spirit level.
22:46And if Brunel couldn't go round a hill,
22:48he went through it.
22:50This is the Box Tunnel.
22:52Isn't it fabulous?
22:54Now Brunel didn't have to make it this ornate.
22:56That's what's exceptional about him.
22:58There's nothing overlooking this place
22:59and yet he's made it a work of art.
23:01The whole railway is a work of art.
23:03And that sums him up.
23:04He was an artist and a perfectionist.
23:09From Paddington to Penzance,
23:11Brunel built the most wonderful bridges,
23:13viaducts and tunnels to keep his trains
23:15on the straight and narrow.
23:17Like here at Maidenhead,
23:19where his line crosses the Thames.
23:23And being Brunel, he did it brilliantly.
23:29OK, what is this?
23:30It's made of brick, it goes over a river,
23:32it carries a railway line.
23:33It's a bridge, a perfectly ordinary, normal bridge.
23:35No.
23:36In engineering terms, this bridge is far from ordinary
23:38and far from normal.
23:40These arches are the widest and flattest arches in the world.
23:44Brunel had done his sums
23:45and come up with this smooth, flat bridge.
23:47And though it approaches the mathematical limits
23:49for a bridge this type,
23:50it's perfectly solid, stable and safe
23:52and beautifully functional.
23:56The first stretch of the GWR
23:58between Paddington and Maidenhead
23:59was completed in just three years.
24:03Remember, there were no pneumatic drills,
24:05no excavators, no bulldozers.
24:08Navvies, many of whom had started on the canals,
24:10built the line by hard graft.
24:14And didn't they do well?
24:17Brunel's line reflects the single-mindedness of the man.
24:21He cared not one bit about the hills and ditches and rivers.
24:26He cut through the rough countryside so ruthlessly,
24:29he laid his great twin lines of iron so accurately,
24:32not even the Romans, with their roads and aqueducts,
24:34could have built anything so perfect.
24:38Thank you very much indeed.
24:40Where are we?
24:43To get from London to Bristol before the Great Western Railway
24:45involved a bone-rattling ride by stagecoach
24:48over pock-holed dirt tracks,
24:50lasting a day even at full pelt.
24:53Thanks to Brunel, by the late 1800s,
24:55it took two and a half hours.
25:00It's shown the world how to build a railway.
25:02Like the canals before them, the railroad spread,
25:05across Britain, then across the world.
25:10The new railways transformed travel into London,
25:13but commuting across the metropolis
25:15was still a pain in the oar-strawn carriage.
25:19Traffic jams were worse then than they are today.
25:21Impossible! No, it's true!
25:23Travellers were soon complaining that the last mile of the journey
25:26was taking longer than the previous 40.
25:28But commuting in London was about to be transformed.
25:32Enter the Underground.
25:38No-one had done it before, and it's no surprise.
25:42Remember, this was before they'd learned about electricity.
25:45London was a city of gaslights and horse-drawn carriages.
25:49The idea of making steam trains run underneath a city
25:52was like someone today suggesting an escalator to the moon.
25:57And yet, in 1863,
25:59the world's very first subterranean railway opened,
26:02linking Farringdon to Paddington,
26:04forming part of what became known as the Metropolitan Line.
26:07Now we're on the Metropolitan Line, which is very exciting,
26:10because not only is it coloured purple,
26:12but it has the two stations that are furthest apart on the Underground system.
26:16That's Cheltenham and Latimer, and Chesham.
26:19In fact, in total, the Underground network has 253 miles of track,
26:23which is the distance from London to Durham.
26:26There are 275 stations,
26:28and each day 2,670,000 journeys are made.
26:32By me alone.
26:34No, I just made that bit up.
26:36And if you think that's interesting, what about this?
26:38St John's Wood is the only station on the Underground
26:41which doesn't contain any of the letters of the word mackerel.
26:45At first, plans for the Tube were greeted with horror.
26:49It was denounced as sheer lunacy.
26:52The tunnels would collapse.
26:54Durham's Column and the rest of London would fall around our ears.
26:58Steam from the trains would cook the passengers.
27:01Good afternoon.
27:03Welcome to Baker Street. Thank you.
27:05Thank you for coming. Welcome to Baker Street Station.
27:08Steam was indeed a problem, but problems are there to be solved.
27:12The ingenious solution was a condensing boiler.
27:15Instead of releasing the steam,
27:17the new Underground engines would turn it back into water
27:20and use it all over again.
27:23My name is Rory McGrath,
27:25and I'd like to welcome you to Baker Street Station,
27:27which is one of the very first Underground stations
27:29opened back in January 1863.
27:32Oh, and one more thing.
27:34Mind the gap.
27:36I said, mind the gap.
27:38Thank you, fans.
27:42Look at this. It says, Mind the Gap.
27:44And, yes, there is a huge gap there.
27:46Now, you may wonder why the trains don't actually fit the platforms.
27:49Well, that's because when they were first built,
27:51they could only allow to build the railway line underneath the road,
27:55so it had to follow every kink and bend in the road.
28:00The first tunnels were little more than covered trenches
28:02under existing roads.
28:04They were dug out, lined with brick,
28:06and then covered over with six feet of London mud.
28:10For all the do-mongering, the punters weren't put off.
28:13At six o'clock on the morning the Metropolitan Line opened,
28:15these streets here at Baker Street were absolutely packed.
28:1840,000 people came down here to try out the new mode of transport.
28:22Guards had to shout, No room, no room,
28:24as they closed the doors and crammed people on.
28:29The name of the automated announcer is Sonia.
28:33Sonia.
28:34Because she gets Sonia nerves.
28:41The new Underground was a huge hit with the public.
28:44In the first year alone, nearly 10 million journeys were made.
28:48Like beavers, they burrowed under London,
28:51linking up Hammersmith, Moorgate, South Kensington,
28:54Westminster and Swiss Cottage.
28:56But for many years there were no tube tunnels under central London.
28:59Digging up roads in Westminster and Bank
29:01would have simply brought London to a halt.
29:03And yet congestion was getting worse.
29:06Something had to be done.
29:10The solution was to dig deep
29:12and to use newfangled electric trains.
29:17To see how deep they dug,
29:18I have come to the disused station at Aldwych
29:20to meet tube boffin Mike Ashworth.
29:23Now, big question, Mike, straight away,
29:26how many steps do we have to go down?
29:28You've got to go down 166 steps here at Aldwych.
29:30And how many do you have to come up?
29:32I'm afraid you've got to come up 166 steps.
29:35Electric tube trains were first introduced in 1890
29:38on what is now a stretch of the Northern Line.
29:41Absolutely safe.
29:42The line ran much deeper than the earlier lines,
29:44so how was it done?
29:46This is my first look at that in a distant station.
29:48That's a view you never, ever get, isn't it?
29:50That's wonderful.
29:51And it also makes you realise how circular,
29:53how tube-like it is.
29:55It's where the name comes from.
29:57How did they do it there?
29:59They used a thing called a great head shield.
30:01A head shield?
30:02Yes, which is a device that actually provides
30:04a safe working environment for the tunnellers.
30:07And it's a bit like a giant pastry cutter on its side,
30:10so that you have the sharp edge
30:12forced into the tunnelling material, into the clay here,
30:15and you can actually dig out by hand.
30:17When you say hand, you mean by people with spades?
30:19People with spades and picks.
30:21And the material was carted out along the tunnel
30:24and out through the shaft.
30:25And then it was used, you know,
30:27basically as backfill elsewhere in London.
30:29Anywhere special?
30:30The North End stand at Chelsea Football Club
30:32is the tunnelling material from the Piccadilly line's west end,
30:35so it's had numerous uses over the years.
30:38It all happened incredibly quickly.
30:4030 years after the opening of the first section
30:42of the Metropolitan line, a proper network was in place.
30:49Add the Victoria and Jubilee lines,
30:51and what we use today is barely different
30:53from what the Victorians left us.
30:57And what about this Harry Beck's map of the Underground?
31:00Isn't it wonderful?
31:01I mean, it's functional, it's informative,
31:04it's a work of art, it's got lots of colours in it,
31:06it's wonderful.
31:07When I first came to London from Cornwall,
31:09I actually, this is going to sound sad, but it's true,
31:11I actually learnt it off by heart to save time.
31:13I learnt the whole map off by heart.
31:15Well, it's before I discovered women and things like that
31:17and drinking, but...
31:19But it's a wonderful piece of work,
31:20and Harry Beck only got paid five guineas for it.
31:23For this work of art, he got paid £5.25p.
31:28I'd give a tenner for it, definitely.
31:32It's for Spanish television.
31:34No.
31:37Morning!
31:381p, 2p, 50p a pound,
31:41I don't care what you drop.
31:44Just give me your money
31:47and I promise I will stop.
31:50Welcome to London, have a nice day now.
31:52Thanks for coming down to see me.
31:54Thank you, sir.
31:55God bless you, sir, and keep you.
31:57I'm sure you can afford that.
31:59Buy some new jeans.
32:03The Underground transformed London.
32:06A cramped, crowded city we know from Dickens
32:08could suddenly breathe.
32:10People who worked in the city were now free
32:12to live in more affordable, bigger houses
32:14with gardens and leafy suburbs
32:16like Edgeworth, Wimbledon, Ealing and Uxbridge.
32:19The much-maligned suburbs were a genuine liberation
32:22for ordinary people,
32:24and it was the Tube that made it possible.
32:27Ladies and gentlemen, this is a customer services update.
32:30There is currently a very good service operating
32:32on all Underground lines.
32:34Not just a good service, but a very, very good service.
32:37Have a lovely day now.
32:39That's what you want to hear, isn't it?
32:40Come on, that's what you want to hear.
32:42That's better than normal, don't you think?
32:43It's much better than normal.
32:51Why does engineering in Britain today
32:53lack the buccaneering spirit of Brunel and his chum?
32:57Without any public funding, it took Brunel
32:59only five years to build the Great Western Railway.
33:03It took the Duke of Bridgewater a mere two years
33:05to build his Great Canal.
33:07But thanks to government help,
33:09adding a fifth terminal to Heathrow took 19 years,
33:12and our final icon, 20 years.
33:16In the Ice Age, 8,500 years ago,
33:19Britain split from mainland Europe.
33:22Needless to say, they've been desperate
33:24to get us back ever since.
33:26Albert Mathieu came up with the first serious idea in 1751.
33:30Now, nearly 250 years later,
33:33his dream has become a reality.
33:35Once again, we are joined to the continent
33:37by the Channel Tunnel.
33:45Charles Monschlinckx finally opened the Channel Tunnel
33:48in May 1994,
33:50after 13,000 people had laboured for seven years to dig it.
33:56But unlike the Victorian tunnellers on the London Underground,
33:59this lot had a mechanical monster to munch through the chore.
34:07The tunnel cost £10 billion,
34:10and it's left enough spoil to make England 90 acres bigger
34:13at Sanfoho in Folkestone,
34:15where I'm to meet Alan Myers, the construction manager.
34:21Well, here we are, White Cliffs of Dover, Alan.
34:23But why have you brought me here?
34:25We're talking about the Channel Tunnel,
34:26and yet we're in this lovely sort of picnic area.
34:28It's part of what came out of the tunnel.
34:31There's 5 million cubic metres of spoil came out.
34:34Presumably you weren't responsible for the spoil for the entire tunnel.
34:37Surely the French must have taken half the spoil out.
34:40Well, nearly half.
34:41We did 22km and they did 16.
34:43Why is that?
34:44Well, our ground was a little bit better than theirs.
34:46Our spoil's bigger than their spoil.
34:49Next stop, France.
34:50After a 48km train ride,
34:5240 of them 150 metres beneath the sea,
34:55through the third longest rail tunnel in the world.
34:59Now it only takes half an hour to cross the Channel.
35:01That's very good news for bogus asylum seekers and raven bats.
35:21The Eurotunnel handles 2 million cars,
35:241.25 million lorries,
35:26and 77,000 coaches every year.
35:29And on the passenger train, it takes another 7 million people.
35:33And these figures are set to rocket
35:35when the new terminals are opened at St Pancras and Stratford.
35:39Well, whatever you think of the European project
35:41and the European Union,
35:42statistics bear out our love for popping across the Channel
35:45at the drop of a chapeau.
35:55Can't they keep me talking?
35:56For Alan, it's a source of huge personal pride.
36:00How big an icon do you think the Channel Tunnel is
36:02in terms of civil engineering?
36:04Well, it was voted the project of the century last year.
36:09And last century.
36:10Do I need to say any more?
36:12Digging a tunnel under the English Channel
36:14is a project big enough to impress even Brunel,
36:17even though it's not the longest in the world
36:19and they did it in the early 1900s.
36:22Even though it's not the longest in the world
36:24and they did have big mechanical diggers.
36:27But ambitious modern construction projects
36:29still entail genuine risk.
36:32During the construction, were there any big obstacles?
36:35One of the really big concerns we had at one stage
36:37was building a big chamber, a crossover chamber in the middle
36:40to allow the trains to cross.
36:42Well, one day, and it all dropped six inches
36:44and the water started coming in.
36:46And that was a bit hairy.
36:47Remind me how close, when you actually joined up
36:49and you were shaking your hands through the hole,
36:50how close was the tunnel to the line?
36:52Well, we actually confined our survey
36:56or instrumentation to within that much.
36:58Oh, right.
36:59Inaccuracy.
37:00And that's taken into account things like the curvature
37:02of the earth, even, when you're going over a distance.
37:04I'm surprised you didn't finish up a mile outside Calais.
37:09I'm still impressed that the engineers
37:11tunnelling from either side, 150 metres under the sea
37:14and separated by solid rock,
37:16managed to meet in the middle.
37:18But our series engineer, Claire Barrett,
37:20says it's easy when you know how.
37:22And she's promised to show me her theodolite.
37:25I've got the theodolite out.
37:27That's what it is.
37:28I thought it was an early form of mobile phone.
37:30But what does it actually do?
37:32All the projects in this programme,
37:34the tunnels, the railways, everything,
37:36they all need to know where they've got to be built.
37:39And that's where the theodolite comes in.
37:41So you know how to work one of these things?
37:43Yeah.
37:44First, set up your theodolite
37:46and do a sweep of the local landmarks.
37:48Note where you are in relationship to them
37:50and as you know where they are on the map,
37:52you can pinpoint your position.
37:54Mark that spot.
37:57Is this what we used last night?
38:00And I go off where?
38:01So another fixed point, which is over there somewhere.
38:04Reminds me of my prison days.
38:06Theodolites come with a handy piece of chain attached
38:09so you can move a fixed distance to a second position.
38:12OK, all right.
38:14And take another set of readings.
38:19Tunnellers, whether they be Brunel,
38:21tube builders or the chaps in the channel,
38:23decide on a point where the two ends of their tunnels will meet.
38:26And this is defined by a map reference
38:28and a depth or height from sea level.
38:30Beautiful.
38:31Move on?
38:32Let's move on.
38:34So we can work out where we are in relation to where we want to get to
38:37and plot a straight route to get there.
38:39Simple.
38:41Can you see our final point of destination?
38:44Yep, I've got it in my sights.
38:47Oh, look, here it is. Excellent.
38:50Very nice indeed.
38:52Surveying is good fun, isn't it?
38:54Here we go.
38:55Engineering.
38:56Cheers.
38:57Such hard work.
38:58Engineering.
39:01The modern tunnel is a godsend for the seasick,
39:04but for the claustrophobic it's not quite such good news.
39:07For me, I think it's a brilliant way of getting French footballers to Arsenal much quicker.
39:16Up here we see a boring machine.
39:21Look at that.
39:25The French are obviously delighted with the tunnel
39:28since it carries millions of English pounds in one direction every summer.
39:32So they've set up a grateful monument to the thing.
39:36Now, there are no roundabouts near Folkestone with tunnelling machines on.
39:39Why is that?
39:40Well, all of our tunnelling machines are actually still under the sea.
39:44We didn't bother getting them out?
39:45We didn't get them out.
39:46What we did was when we met, we either dove down or went to the side
39:50and then the French machine came through to make the connection
39:52and then it was dismantled and they brought one out.
39:59It's a testament to the spirit of the British
40:01that we're prepared to build one of the greatest tunnels ever
40:03just to avoid the thieving taxman.
40:06And you know the great thing about being abroad
40:08is to do a little bit of local shopping.
40:11Lovely shops here in France.
40:13And of course you can get things over here you can't get in English shops.
40:19Lovely.
40:25We're all rushing about so much these days
40:27worrying about where we're going and when we're going to get there
40:30that we tend not to notice the transport network
40:32that makes our journeys possible.
40:35And that's a shame because the ways I've travelled around the country
40:38on this programme have shown British engineering at its very best.
40:42But which is the best of the best?
40:44Cast off, Rory.
40:46Aye, Captain.
40:47Take the Bridgewater Canal.
40:49It brought coals to Manchester and boosted the industrial revolution.
40:55Of course, as a Cornishman, I have Great Western Railway engraved on my heart.
40:59Brunel's network that soon stretched to over 3,000 miles.
41:03Thank you for travelling on the Great Western Railway.
41:08But the tube created a railway network underground.
41:10How amazing was that?
41:12Mind the gap.
41:15Then imagine having to deal with 90 million passengers from all over the world.
41:19That's what Heathrow Airport has already planned for.
41:22This is amazingness.
41:25And you have to admire the Channel Tunnel.
41:2748 kilometres under the sea just to bring French footballers to Arsenal.
41:32Bonjour.
41:33Bonjour.
41:34Ca va?
41:35Ca va.
41:37I must say I was a bit sceptical at first doing a programme about infrastructure.
41:40I mean, what the hell is infrastructure?
41:42Doesn't sound terribly interesting.
41:43You can't make it sexy, can you, transport networks?
41:46But, you know, you look at the Great Western Railway.
41:48Oh, no, no, that is sexy.
41:49And you think that is, well, I wouldn't say sexy, but, you know.
41:52Again, we're talking about the B word, aren't we?
41:54Brunel.
41:55Brunel.
41:56Oh, yeah, that would be a word as well, yeah.
41:57No, he was a great man.
41:59London Underground, I love, I mean, that's the Cornish boy up in London.
42:03I worship that.
42:04I like to get out in the countryside and the canals.
42:06What an amazing system.
42:08Bridgewater Canal, the whole English canal system is superb.
42:11I must say I was very impressed with Heathrow because I like planes, you see.
42:15And being in the control tower, it's a big feat of logistics, isn't it?
42:19It's just wonderful.
42:20And then we've got the Channel Tunnel linking us with France.
42:23Yeah, but apart from that, it's really good, isn't it?
42:25Great feat of engineering.
42:26It is superb.
42:27Although I think the entrance is too dull.
42:29The Victorians would have done it in a far grander manner.
42:31Imagine if Brunel had built the Channel Tunnel.
42:33Oh, it would have had elephants on the outside and everything.
42:36But my favourite has to be, I know it's boring, predictable, London Underground.
42:42Oh, GWR for me.
42:44If only for the map of London Underground.
42:46It's a fantastic system.
42:48Straight down to the West Country.
42:50Pink, yellow, green, black, the new turquoise one.
42:53What more do you want?
42:55Do you still think infrastructure is boring, Rory?
42:57No, I must say I was fascinated by every item we covered in that.
43:00Really interesting.
43:01I didn't realise it could be so exciting going from A to B.
43:04And maybe one day we'll get to C, which is on the coast.
43:07And D?
43:08D, and who knows, maybe even E.
43:10I think you're boring me now, Rory.
43:12I'll have to say goodbye.
43:13Goodbye.
43:20Bye.