National Geographic: Dan Cruickshanks Great Railway Adventres

In three very different programmes Dan Cruickshank takes us back into a different world of steam trains and journeys and unravels history and moving personal stories that have shaped Great Britain.

In this first episode Steam Revolution, Dan explores the earliest steam railways and their links to the burgeoning Lancashire cotton industry, discovering how railway pioneers George and Robert Stephenson created the first regular rail service from Manchester to Liverpool in 1830. Travelling down 200 year-old tunnels deep under the Pennines, he learns how thousands of navvies risked life and limb to construct the extraordinary networks of tracks, viaducts, bridges and tunnels that developed into the modern rail network. And he reveals how the early railway magnates won and lost fortunes in the investment bonanza that became known as Railway Mania and which created Britain’s modern rail network.

In the second programme Brilliant Brunel, Dan Cruickshank explores the genius of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. As the cities of London and Bristol expanded and industrialised a fast route was needed between the two cities and that meant investing in the latest technology - the Railway.  Fortunately, they had just the man - at the age of just 27, the brilliant engineer Brunel had been forming his own vision of a new type of transport system whose watchwords would be Speed and Comfort. His Great Western Railway would transform the experience of passenger rail travel. In putting his vision into practice Brunel became a household name, the epitome of the entrepreneurial Victorian Engineer. Dan Cruickshank takes us on a journey through Brunel’s vision. Locations include Clifton suspension bridge, the SS Great Britain in Bristol docks, Didcot Railway Centre and Box tunnel near Bath. Dan explains how Brunel’s ultimate ambition combined his new railways with a steamship to provide the first high-speed transport link to New York - the Concorde of its day.

In War Heroes the third film in the series Dan Cruickshank focuses on the railways on the frontline - moving troops to the front, rescuing them when they retreated, evacuating civilians, suffering nightly bombardment during the Blitz and playing a vital role in the build up to D-Day. During the First World War, railways played a heroic role moving troops and supplies to the front using a technology that came from the hills of Wales – narrow gauge railways. Dan Cruickshank shows us how and why the technology worked in moving heavy slate down the Welsh hills and how narrow gauge was perfect for northern France. In the Second World War trains were crucial - moving troops and goods around Britain, particularly in the build up to D-Day. Dan also investigates the worst British maritime disaster in history, the sinking of The Lancastria, a tragedy for the many railway engineers travelling aboard. On 17th of June, 1940 the Lancastria evacuated over 6,000 engineers who’d been cut off from the evacuation of Dunkirk. She was bombed and sank within 20 minutes, taking with her an estimated 4,000 victims – many of them railwaymen. Dan meets and talks to Reg Brown, 90 year old survivor of the Lancastria Disaster – and a carpenter working for the Royal Engineers.