The Railways That Built Britain - CH5 Mondays.

[Envoy]

A series about the history of railways in Britain starts on Channel 5 on Monday 13 February, 2017. (Chris Tarrant).
The Railways That Built Britain - CH5 Mondays at 9pm.

 

[Flying Phil]

From GCR "Rail Mail"
From the General Manager

Quite often at GCR we’re compelled for various reasons to respect confidentiality. One of the most frequent causes is where commercial filming has taken place in which GCR is bound by a legal contract not to disclose anything, even though a casual visitor to the Railway on a particular day will have learned very quickly what is happening! So, that’s our reason for only spilling the beans now, as below, but please get the word around. Last November, we were visited by Channel 5 and a certain Chris Tarrant for the day. This is now to be aired next Monday, Monday 13th February 9pm on Channel 5! Hope you enjoy!

 

[Envoy]

I could have done with rather less background music!

 

[RichJF]

I noticed the same clip of a steam loco exiting a double track station onto a single line about 5 times in the documentary.

My preserved line knowledge isn't the strongest so I can't pinpoint it sadly :cry:

 

[yorksrob]

The preserved railway was the Bluebell, featuring West Hoathly tunnel. Enjoyable programme, although as mentioned above there was some repetition of the stock footage. I enjoyed Chris Tarrant's presenting.

 

[Phil.]

I could have done with rather less background music!

Background music? It's becoming an endemic obsession. Every documentary nowadays has to have three things.
Intrusive background music.
A presenter who keeps using the word "epic".
A presenter who can't keep their arms still whilst chirruping.

Didn't see the programme,. Iwatched a documentary about French art on BBC4 (you didn't miss much).

 

[Golden Gripper]

For a general interest programme it was ok, though very sketchy due to squeezing into 2 week slot.I would agree the music was terrible and the pictures jumped around in a very confusing way. They could have used the pictures to enhance what was being said, instead they just jumped around randomly .

This subject has been covered several times before and Chris Tarrent added little that hadn't already been said.

 

[MotorcycleAlan]

Agree totally about the dreadful music and wasn't some of it similar to what was used on the recent BBC series giving much the same information, as after all there is nothing new to learn is there? Chris Tarrant has a lovely style, but nothing matches the excitement of Rob Bell who is a genuine engineer and who made me so envious when he crossed the Forth Bridge in the cab of an HST. Channel 5 does do some fine work.

 

[Darandio]

Channel 5 does do some fine work.

You wouldn't have to go back many years and struggle to find anyone to believe that sentence is remotely true!

 

[bearhugger]

Are there any TV series about the railways that haven't used footage / featured the replica of Puffing Billy, at what looks like Beamish Museum? Probably, but it seems like it's in every one

 

[TheEdge]

You wouldn't have to go back many years and struggle to find anyone to believe that sentence is remotely true!

There was nothing wrong with constant repeats of Sexcetra, I enjoyed it very much as a 14 year old boy...

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I watched the programme and must admit that the music really didn't bother me. The content was a little disappointing; it seemed to be an attempt to squeeze into one hour much of what the BBC used in 6 episodes of their recent similar series. I was also unimpressed at the failure to properly explain the derivation of the term "navvy": yes, it's short for navigator but that term had already existed since the age of canal-building when manual labour was deployed in a very similar fashion to build what were often referred to as "navigations".

OTOH once again Tarrant did a good job of presenting railways to the layman. It'll be interesting to see how the next episode deals with "Railways at War". How much detail will be revealed about matters that simply couldn't be discussed at the time and will there be any reference to the fact that, indirectly at least, the severe wear and tear of wartime operations led to the long-term decline of railways which was not arrested until roughly 30 years ago.

 

[ian1944]

I prefer presenters who can look me in the eye for the length of a sentence - Tarrant's gaze kept shifting over my right shoulder. Though not as annoying as Ruth Goodman (once the station manager (or whatever) at Chester), whose entire delivery on one programme was to a fixed point distinctly to the viewer's right.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Did Tarrant assert that Manchester United built their football ground near a railway station or did I mishear that part of the programme?

(If I'm not mistaken, Old Trafford football ground was opened in 1910, but the halt at the ground on the CLC Manchester-Liverpool line didn't open until some 25 years later).

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Did Tarrant assert that Manchester United built their football ground near a railway station or did I mishear that part of the programme?

(If I'm not mistaken, Old Trafford football ground was opened in 1910, but the halt at the ground on the CLC Manchester-Liverpool line didn't open until some 25 years later).

You heard correctly, and the same claim was made for Arsenal and Chelsea. In fact Chelsea's Stamford Bridge was built on a pre-existing athletic track and a station already existed on the adjacent West London Line. This station was irreparably damaged during the blitz and never re-opened.

To go OT the forthcoming redevelopment of Stamford Bridge will see the WLL completely covered over at this point but no station is planned. Instead there will be a direct link between the stadium and Fulham Broadway station (on the District Line).

 

[Pyreneenguy]

Just watched this after downloading from a private tracker; it was quite an enjoyable way to spend an hour. I've lived outside of the U.K for over 30 years and Chris Tarrant was completely unknown to me. I appreciated his clear and sharp delivery which was never monotonous. Many of the facts and figures I already knew but there was plenty of new stuff and one that I found particularly interesting, the London Necropolis Railway. I'm looking forward to next Monday's episode !


If any ex-pat enthusiasts would like to download the programme, just send me a PM and I'll see if I can rustle together a few invitations to the private tracker, the name of which, for obvious reasons I cannot mention.

 

[Robertj21a]

I decided to watch it but seem to have just lost that part of my life in the process. Nothing fresh about it, rather jumbled up, and I was left wondering why they'd even bothered.

 

[R4_GRN]

Just watched it on catchup, why do they let people with no interest on the subject do the sound mixing! Spoiled the programme for me still better than watching soaps and quiz shows though.

 

[Pyreneenguy]

I decided to watch it but seem to have just lost that part of my life in the process. Nothing fresh about it, rather jumbled up, and I was left wondering why they'd even bothered.

Well I'm sure it enlightened many who never give a passing thought to the origins of the train and railway system they use everyday.

Perhaps you get more pleasure watching televised darts

 

[Robertj21a]

Well I'm sure it enlightened many who never give a passing thought to the origins of the train and railway system they use everyday.

Perhaps you get more pleasure watching televised darts

Not at all. It's just nothing different to all the other programmes that have covered precisely the same ground many times.

 

[Requeststop]

Not at all. It's just nothing different to all the other programmes that have covered precisely the same ground many times.

Not everyone watches BBC2 or Channel 4 or the mess that is ITV these days. But if Channel 5 wishes to use the likes of Chris Tarrant to present in a different way the history of railways to viewers who'd not watch other channels then who are we to complain?

For me, even if certain facts are presented in a different way, I applaud any TV station that shows programmes about railways. It all adds to the wonderful record of the history of this wonderful method of transportation.

I do have a thread in General Discussion for a section here on Railway TV Film and Video. I think and hope many will be supportive of such a discussion group.

And yes, there are ways to watch and record the programmes, even out here on the edge of the Coral Sea.

 

[DarloRich]

I will just issue my usual disclaimer that these programmes are aimed at the average punter on the 1754 from Clapham rather than the committed super spotter?

 

[Llanigraham]

I will just issue my usual disclaimer that these programmes are aimed at the average punter on the 1754 from Clapham rather than the committed super spotter?

Quite! And the sooner people realise this the better.

 

[Flying Phil]

I watched it on "Catch Up" TV and, although I did not learn very much from it, I enjoyed watching the various segments and tried to work out where and when they were filmed. It is obviously aimed at a relatively unknowing mass market and I thought it did the job very well - any sensible Railway programme is to be welcomed.

 

[RichJF]

Having grown up listening to Chris Tarrant on Capital back in the early '90s it's always fun to watch his documentaries.

Even for the rail enthusiast like myself, I learned a great deal about things such as the Armagh rail disaster; which I was previously unaware to such an extent.

Having been to the old Midland Hotel (now the St. Pancras Renaissance) for a special work event a few years back it was nice to see something I've visited & been to. The food there is certainly as good as he makes out!

 

[MonsooN]

I live just near Beamish and it's always nice to see the museum getting some publicity. It really is a wonderful place.

I thought it was OK. Nothing groundbreaking, but it was interesting and entertaining and you can tell that Tarrant clearly has a love for trains and the railways - you got the impression that he was genuinely enjoying filming and being in the locations he was in rather than someone who was just going through the motions.

I'm looking forward to watching next week's episode.

 

[tiptoptaff]

Not the best I've seen, but not the worst. Quite enjoyed it really, I quite liked Tarrant's style on his "Extreme Journeys" series, and suited the way he did this quite well.

Would say, it's not as good as Locomotion was, with Dan Snow being a proper historian. But as others have said, it brought railway history to a potentially new and different audience.

 

[ian1944]

Did I imagine that in episode 2 he said that the grouping into GWR, LMS, LNER and SR occurred in 1932? I'm sure it was followed by "seven years later" which referred to the outbreak of war in 1939, so couldn't have been just an instantaneous reading error. Very poor, if true.

 

[DelW]

The video clips, especially of the preservation era, often bore little or no relevance to the words on the soundtrack. In one case CT was talking about the LNER era on the ECML over an archive clip of a streamlined Coronation Scot.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Did I imagine that in episode 2 he said that the grouping into GWR, LMS, LNER and SR occurred in 1932? I'm sure it was followed by "seven years later" which referred to the outbreak of war in 1939, so couldn't have been just an instantaneous reading error. Very poor, if true.

The subtitles did say that so it looks like a typo in the script that nobody picked up on; 1932 for 1923? Very poor quality control!