The next train approaching platform one is a tiny wee thing going 73 miles to Inverness on a model track
it would work or not, if we had the right engine, the right system, the right rails, how the public would react or how we would cope.
“So when it set off and did the first tiny bit of its journey, there was an amazing kind of euphoria amongst the teams.
“Three days in, we had already become a community. If you throw people into a difficult situation with a challenge, they rise to it.
“At the first, there was an immense feeling of success tempered by realism because we knew just how far 70 miles was going to feel and that was scary.
“There was a point part-way through the build when there were just too many demands – the stress of how the train was going and managing not just the two build teams but also people’s expectations of what a tiny train can do in the real world.
“But it was also a lot of fun and that comes through in the programme – how much fun you can have if you set a ridiculous challenge.”
Retired RAF man and former offshore sub engineer Derek Souter, 57, from Elgin, lapped up the challenge.
He said: “When I heard we were covering a distance of 73 miles in two weeks I wondered how we would do it. I build model railways and you are talking weeks and weeks just to lay a couple of metres of track.
“We did it in three-metre sections of track which fitted together easily, so it didn’t really need to be laid. It was more a case of throwing it on the ground and sticking it together. With a model train, you take ages to get it level and immaculate, but there was not the same degree of finesse with this, we just got it done.”
With a tiny 3.3kg train shuttling on its way and requiring as gentle a gradient as possible to get up and over things, much work was required.
Derek added: “We were the elite builders to overcome major obstacles, build bridges and viaducts, things like that.
“We had to replicate real world solutions into the model world. One of the bridges we built, if to scale, would be something like 600m long. That was great fun.”
Retired mortgage collection officer Lawrence, 64, worked with his team to find real world solutions to their model problems. He said: “This was an active landscape, with people walking, cycling, hiking, traffic driving, forestry commission felling trees and lots of onlookers.
“The biggest challenge for me was Invermorrison, where we had to scale 500ft very rapidly.
“With scale, that’s 11,000ft – the same as the highest railway station in Europe, in Switzerland, where they took six years to build a line. We had to come up with real-world solutions very quickly.
“We had to build a train ferry to go under a bridge on the canal. Before the Forth Bridge, a train ferry was used to get to Edinburgh.
“We also had to use winches and counter-balance systems, like they used in Welsh slate mines. We built bridges from wood, had wheels machined up and every day we had amazing challenges and had to find brilliant ways of overcoming them.”
Dick revealed that it was more than just a mental battle. He added: “It was physically gruelling. We had different ages, men, women, young, old, everyone just pulling together with the desire to see the Silver Lady, our little train, get from one side of Scotland to the other.”
Derek added: “Model-wise, it was a great achievement and something special to be part of.
“At the start, it was about laying train tracks but it became something more, about the relationships between young and old, a real sense of overcoming the conditions and there was a great sense of camaraderie. It was great.” ●The Biggest Little Railway in the World is on Sunday at 8pm on Channel 4.