INSIDE THE FACTORY XL: TRAINS BBC Two, 9pm
Gregg Wallace visits the 84-acre Alstom factory site, just outside Derby, where a Class 720 Aventra Electric Train is being built, weighing 187 tons and observed by a host who comes bearing almost as many statistics. The ensuing hour is somehow both gobsmacking and stultifying, such is the onslaught of information delivered with Wallace’s trademark childlike delight and underpinned by a soundtrack heavy on AC/DC.
From welding (at temperatures “more than 60 times hotter than the hottest setting on my oven”) to coating and painting, assembly and installation of the horn, precision is at the heart of the operation and, accordingly, the detail in the documentary is nonpareil. The climax, in which Wallace drives the train, is irresistible even so, and the project, which takes up to 1,000 hours, genuinely impressive. As ever, Cherry Healey and Ruth Goodman are on supporting duties: the former visits an aluminiumsmelting factory in the Scottish Highlands and a boring project as part of HS2 (no mention here of any controversy or setbacks), the latter travels to Brighton to learn the story of the world’s oldest surviving electric railway – one that survived political scepticism and religious tubthumping.