TV CHALLENGE
IN THE country which is home to the Glenfinnan viaduct and the stunning Forth Bridge, one tract of land has remained impervious to the best efforts of railway engineers for hundreds of years.
With hills, lochs, waterways and forests, the Great Glen has one of the most unforgiving landscapes facing any hopeful builders.
Until, that is, a few dozen model railway enthusiasts gathered in Fort William for the most entertaining engineering project ever seen in Scotland – to build a tiny railroad to run the 73 miles to Inverness.
Channel 4 gathered together 56 volunteers to lay track across fields, paths, canals, up mountains and hills, over drops and around obstacles, for new series The Biggest Little Railway in the World, which launches this week.
The four-part programme chronicles an incredible two weeks in which presenters Dick Strawbridge and Claire Barrett had to lead their teams in a project which captured the imagination of Highlanders and railway geeks all over the world last summer.
Attracting real world rail engineers and workers, as well as basement builders and committed enthusiasts, the 56-strong army faced impossible challenges, evil midges and geographical conundrums – but they loved every minute of it.
Dick said: “Television allows you to do bonkers ideas. We we started off in conversations with the production team, discussing silly ideas, and talked about the scale of a model railway and how in Scotland the Victorians hadn’t been able to get across the Highlands.
“All of a sudden it gets legs, and then becomes, ‘We can do this’. It might be hell but we are going to have a go.
“The scale is about 46-1, so small, the train is so tiny that the trip from Fort William to Inverness is (equivalent to) half the distance of the Trans-Siberian railway.
“One of the hills we went up, to scale, we were taking it up one-and-a-half times the height of Everest.”
Volunteer team leader Lawrence Robbins said: “Just because it’s bonkers INVERNESS Land between two stops is inhospitable FORT WILLIAM doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea.” Claire added: “You can’t quite get your head around it. Even when you say it out loud, it sounds like a joke, doesn’t it?” With teams sent out across the Highlands to lay track and conquer obstacles, Claire was in charge of the heavy building and more complex tasks. While Dick followed the train’s progress, she was working ahead of time to make sure the Silver Lady steam engine had somewhere to go when it caught up with their progress. She said: “Three days in, the train started to move. No one knew whether
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