Britain's railways were once the envy of the world.
You could get a train from almost anywhere...
..to almost anywhere else.
They were the network that supported an industrial superpower.
There we go.
Oh! I've never seen anything like that.
But today...
..4,000 stations and 8,000 miles of track lie silent.
This station feels truly lost.
So I'm setting off to discover more of Britain's lost railways.
Wow! This is something else.
They tell a story...
Look at this!
..of how we once lived...
Oh, I love that!
..and how we once worked.
This is one heck of a piece of engineering.
And they help reveal how our world has changed today.
Ye-e-es!
Welcome to Aberdeen, the great port city of north-east Scotland.
Since the 1970s,
this place has become known as the oil capital of Europe.
Long before North Sea oil was discovered,
Aberdeen was the gateway to the Scottish Highlands.
And I'm here in search of a lost railway that was key to that.
It was called the Deeside Line
and from 1853, it was built along the valley of the River Dee,
into what is now the Cairngorms National Park.
As far as the Highland village of Ballater.
It was built with very modest ambitions -
to help the rural communities and people of Deeside
to sell their wares up and down the valley -
but it ended up playing a much bigger role.
The Deeside Line promoted the wonders of the Scottish Highlands
to the world, helped a great deal by its most famous passenger -
the original global super-brand, Queen Victoria.
By 1850, the railways had reached north as far as Aberdeen.
But few people ever dreamt of travelling further
into the wild Scottish Highlands.
This branch line, though, would change all that
because it happened to lead to Balmoral Castle -
the new home of the Highlands' biggest fans,
Victoria and her dear Prince Albert.
Problem was, Aberdeen's temporary station of the time
was just a wooden platform - hardly fit for a queen.
John. Hello. How do you do?
Near the mouth of the River Dee, I'm meeting John Tyler
of the local Railway Heritage Trust
to find the spots where the new owners of Balmoral
were once forced to change trains.
Here is the main railway line that exists today,
coming up from the south. Here we go -
we've got a train coming across. We've got a train coming across.
That's probably coming up from Edinburgh.
Into Aberdeen? Into Aberdeen, in what they call the joint station.
But in 1853, all that existed behind these modern office blocks
was a simple construction called Ferryhill.
There's not much here to see, really, is there? Er...
Well, we're definitely right up near the railway tracks here,
but, well, it's a car park.
We're almost certain that the Ferryhill temporary station was here.
And you can see that as the curvature of the houses goes round,
that's where the Deeside Line branched off from the main line.
So, for all intents and purposes, though, John,
this is the spot where the Deeside Line begins. Yes.
That must have been a huge PR coup for the railway company,
having the Queen travel on their line.
It's almost by royal appointment. Yes, it was by royal appointment,
because each of the railway companies competed with each other
to have the most luxurious railway carriages for royalty.
What we've got is a situation which is brand-new transport technology
being tested out by royalty.
Queen Victoria was a railway pioneer and for decades she made
the convoluted journey by rail from Windsor.
She insisted on very regal progression,
never exceeding 40mph,
so the long journey to Balmoral would take around 18 hours.
But why did she go to such lengths
to come to this wild and remote part of the world?
Along the old railway line on the outskirts of Aberdeen,
I'm meeting author and historian Stuart Wilson.
Thinking about the Highlands itself,
do we know what the attraction was for Victoria and Albert?
She came here because the weather was so good.
She'd had a miserable holiday in 1847 on the west coast of Scotland,
where it rained every day.
So her doctor said, "You should try Deeside."
And Queen Victoria came twice a year and everything was here.
Deer stalking, salmon fishing.
And she had lovely little cottages that she went to,
and she picnicked nearly every day, in fact. She loved it up here.
It was her glorious place that she could relax
and nobody bothered her at all.
This was the royal holiday, then, was it?
They'd come up for rural pursuits.
Absolutely so. And they didn't just come up for two weeks.
They came up for months, in fact.
This is Cults Station here, is it? Yeah, this is Cults Station.
The clock was, as you see, doesn't go and it's painted on.
But that was exactly where the clock was.
Should I be looking out for many old stations
along Royal Deeside Line? Absolutely so.
Most of them are still there.
What can I expect out in the wilds of the Highlands?
Well, you'll start to see the river,
you'll start to see the mountains
and you'll really feel in a different world altogether.
I can't wait! That sounds like the world I want to be in.
Leaving Cults,
It does feel like the real Deeside countryside has begun.
This railway wasn't built for royalty - far from it.
It was built to serve communities and industries of the valley,
many of which are still going strong
over 50 years after the railway closed in 1966.
Come on, girls!
Come on!
Having quit her local council job to live her dream,
Grace Noble has run Aberdeenshire Highland Beef since 2012.
Come on, girls!
Oh, look at this. This is lovely!
How old are these little calves?
They're just a couple of weeks old, just wee newborn teddy bears.
Yeah. Little fluff-balls, little teddy bears, yeah. Yes.
The rise of the railways around Aberdeen
changed the nature of the cattle business.
Within a decade of the Deeside Line opening,
almost 14,000 head of cattle were being sent southwards each year -
the majority all the way to London.
There's so much connection to royalty around here.
That's right. Is there a royal connection to the Highland cattle?
Yeah, there certainly is.
Queen Victoria started off her own herd at Balmoral
and the Queen today, at Balmoral Castle,
she's got a beautiful herd of Highland cattle,
and she sells hers for big money,
her breeding livestock, all over the world.
And I actually source yearling calves from her, the ones that,
you know, aren't good enough to sell as breeding livestock.
So we have royal cattle around us here,
or along that lineage? Yeah, on that lineage. Yes.
Just like the royal cows, a handful of Grace's herd
make regular appearances at local shows.
This morning, the cow getting all the attention is Duchess.
Last year, she came first in the local agricultural show
and she's competing again this weekend.
Just gently sand the horns.
It just takes all the rough edges off and makes them nice and smooth.
This is definitely a first for me.
I have never taken sandpaper to a cow's horn before. Yeah.
Good girl. Come on, work with me. Come on, Duchess.
So, we've got a wee handy tip here, Rob.
As you can see, the horns here are quite dull now. Mm.
But if you'd like to put some oil on them... Yeah?
..that'll really transform the horns.
So... This is making my day even more strange. Yeah, it is, isn't it?
I've never sanded a cow's horn before
and now I'm going to oil it up. Aha.
Oil in the hand. That's it. Right, come here.
Yeah. Just spread it on. Look at that - straightaway.
Yeah. So... That's gor... Look at those colours - come right out.
Yeah, it almost matches the colour of her coat, you know.
Oh, my word! That's beautiful!
Even Prince Albert took a punt
and entered a Highland Scot bull in the 1846 Smithfield cattle show.
The prince missed out on first prize,
but organisers were wise enough to give him a commendation.
Believe it or not, there is a wee Highland heifer in there
waiting to get out.
There is a set of eyes, there is a character under there, Duchess,
and you can see her.
She's beautiful! I know.
She's got her chin out like that.
"Go on, get under there." Outstretched.
But I'm sorry to report that three days after my visit,
Duchess only came second in her big comp.
Looks like my cow-grooming skills need improving.
Coming up...
..I visit an old rail-side industry that's Deeside through and through.
I love it. I love it.
And I try a highland tradition...
Get over!
..that's still by royal appointment.
15 miles from Aberdeen, I'm following a railway line
that changed this region forever.
The Deeside Line, as it was known,
ran for 43 miles between Aberdeen and Ballater.
It closed in 1966 and most of it has now become
the Deeside Way footpath.
But look hard enough
and there are plenty of railway remnants to discover.
I just stepped off the Deeside Way
because I've been given permission to come and have a look
around what was the station at Crathes.
And here it is.
Bit of work to get here, but it is well worth it.
So I'm stood right here where the track was.
You can see the platform wall there.
Let's go and have a closer look.
Nature's doing a great job of reclaiming this place.
But you can still make out some distinctive features.
This station opened in 1863 and it was a replacement
for what was a private station
a little further west at Crathes Castle.
You can see this has just been left. It's completely abandoned.
It's a far cry from the days when tourists came here
from as far as London to catch a glimpse of Queen Victoria
on her way to Balmoral.
You can imagine this whole platform bustling with people,
getting on and off long trains laid on for summer excursions.
And scenes like this continued to be part of Deeside life
long after Queen Victoria's reign.
Royal after royal were coming to Balmoral and travelling by train.
It was about the best bit of marketing a rural railway ever had.
But...the line was just no way near as busy or as successful
as anyone involved had hoped.
In 1914, competition from local buses saw passenger numbers
on the line start to dwindle.
By the Second World War, 14 stations along the route had been closed.
But in 1958 came a glimmer of hope.
Deeside became the centre of a new development in rail travel -
a battery-powered train nicknamed Sputnik.
And, amazingly, it's still here.
Keith. Hi, Robert.
Great to meet you.
Scottish rail historian Keith Jones
can tell me what Sputnik was all about.
Why was it called Sputnik?
Well, it was introduced just a few months after the Soviet Union
first sent Sputnik 1 up into space.
And some local wag, probably after a few rounds in the bar,
called it the Sputnik because it was so modern and so up to date.
Well, that's it, cos it was
this really pioneering electric transportation.
It was unique on British railways as being the one and only
battery unit that ever ran.
So, why bring it to Deeside?
The length of the line was just about right.
It was 43 miles, roughly the limit of the battery power.
Also, the Hydro-Electric Board
actually gave it subsidised electricity.
So it was very, very cheap,
very, very cheap to run, which all seemed at the time
to make this the ideal line to run this experimental train on.
I guess, with the hope that it would be successful
and it could potentially be rolled out across other railways.
That was the idea.
But, sadly, this ground-breaking technology
never made it beyond this one railway line.
Sputnik's 17½ tons of batteries were prone to catching fire.
I've got a photograph here, showing the battery car at Ballater
with a number of wires all feeding into the equipment here.
So, that would all get plugged in.
That would all get plugged in at Ballater
and then at Aberdeen as well.
It's almost like your mobile phone, isn't it? Big charge overnight
and then hopefully you're ready to go through the day
with maybe a couple of little top-ups. Yes.
You could see that this might be the predecessor of the electric car.
It's brilliant. That's brilliant!
This was pioneering, then? Yes.
There's a company that just started experimenting
with battery-powered trains in Britain now.
This was 60 years ahead of its time.
That's a nice thought, isn't it?
It's wonderful that this short-lived piece of railway history
has been kept here on Deeside.
And just a mile further along the old line,
my route has brought me to the banks of the river itself.
One of the features of the railway as I approach Banchory
is this enormous granite retaining wall
that was built by the railway company to prevent any erosion
from the fast-flowing River Dee, right alongside here.
Now, Banchory is the largest town along my route
and one of the few places in Deeside
that existed as a well-established town
prior to the arrival of the railways.
For centuries, Banchory has been
a centre for a great Deeside industry -
timber.
And right alongside the railway,
there's been a sawmill here since 1854,
the year after the line opened.
This is right at the start of the process here.
This is the beginning of it. This is where it all begins.
What can we see here, then, Jim? What's happening?
The timber is coming in from the forests, coming in on vehicles.
Jim Cordiner's family have run the mill since the 1950s.
So, the first thing we need to do is to debark the logs.
After that, the logs pass through there and they're sorted to size.
After sorting, it then goes into the sawmill for processing.
This is... This is lovely, seeing all this, Jimmy.
So mechanical, isn't it?
Lots to go wrong here, Rob, but, er...
For centuries, the river was used to float logs to mills downstream.
But, when it arrived, the Deeside Line transformed this industry.
Suddenly there was a whole wide world out there
that we could trade with.
The timber traditionally had gone out by horse and cart.
All done by hand - no forklifts.
All heavy, hard work, and blood, sweat and tears.
In your days, then, at the mill, do you remember the railway
and how important that was for your operation? Yeah.
Oh, great memories.
It was quite something to see steam locomotives coming thundering past,
you know. The railway provided a very important link for us
to sell our produce to our customers.
And we didn't realise at the time
but we were actually very eco-friendly,
putting everything out by rail.
But I can't leave without seeing how things are done today.
Look at this!
These are the modern operations of a sawmill in here, is it, Jim?
Well, this is the latest technology, Rob.
The timber is mechanically sorted to size
and then it's cross-cut to length,
put into a pack and banded up
and then out to the yard for storage.
Far from dying out, this industry has had a new lease of life.
As people turn their back on plastics,
timber is experiencing a renaissance thanks to sustainable forestry.
It's noisy, though, in here, isn't it? It's is noisy,
but I'm afraid that's just part of the package.
No, I can put up with that. Yeah.
I think you want a job here.
I love it. I love it.
Leaving Banchory behind,
the Deeside Line made a rare loop
away from the river,
avoiding a twisting section
of the Dee,
before returning to its riverside ways
at the village of Aboyne.
For seven years, this spot was as far up the valley
as the Deeside Line reached.
You don't have to be a railway expert to recognise
a good old Victorian railway station.
And this is undoubtably the old station here at Aboyne.
This old photo here proves that exactly.
Used slightly differently, though, now, these days.
What've we got here? A cafe, hairdresser's.
Whilst the rest of the railway was being built,
this was where Queen Victoria swapped train
for horse-drawn carriage
to finish her journey to Balmoral, 15 miles away.
But the Deeside Line didn't just bring royalty to Aboyne.
It helped establish an annual tradition
here on the village green -
the Aboyne Highland Games.
Hi, Morag. Hi, Rob. Nice to meet you. You too.
Do you want to pop in under the shelter? I will, actually, if you don't mind.
Morag has been the Aboyne Games' secretary for the last 13 years.
It's all very quiet out here on the green here today. Yes.
But come Games day... Yeah. You wouldn't recognise this field.
Yeah. You really wouldn't.
Paint a picture. What would be happening out here?
What would we be seeing? At 11 o'clock,
we've got the Massed Pipe Bands parade round the arena.
We've got the heavy events - hammer throwing, shot put.
Light events - so you've got running, jumping, pole vault.
We've got 96 events on the day. So...
Whatever you're into. Yeah.
And it's continually running, all day long.
The Games started here in Aboyne in 1867.
There are similar events all around the Highlands
but from the beginning, visitors came here in their droves.
Do you think the railways were aware of the commercial possibilities
of shipping people in for the Highland Games?
Yes, the railways put on special trains to bring in extra crowds.
Absolutely. So they... I mean, it's beneficial to them as well.
Yeah. Packing these trains out. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
And everyone piling off at Aboyne Station.
Yeah, I can imagine it was pandemonium down there. I bet it was!
No trains and no games today.
But I'm getting to meet a local star, James Dawkins.
He competes all the local and Highland Games,
all the heavy events.
So he does, like, the caber, the hammer, the shot put. Yeah.
And he's an Aboyne lad.
Hi, Rob. How you going? Not too bad. Yourself?
Two years ago,
James was part of Aboyne's 150th anniversary celebrations.
They were marked in style, with the attendance
of Queen Victoria's great-great-granddaughter.
Me and another local lad,
we carried the new challenge caber across to the Queen.
She christened it with a dram of a special 150-year whisky.
And it's a classic Highland caber that James has brought along today.
Around 18 feet and 50 kilos, it weighs, 110lb.
So, what are you trying to achieve with the caber?
Is it about how far you can toss it?
No, with the caber, you pick up, you run, stop,
you toss it and you want the caber to go end over end
and land directly in front of you.
You work on a 12 o'clock.
So, like a clock face directly in front of you.
So, if you land at 12, perfect score.
Well, that doesn't sound so difficult.
Stand back a little bit. Yeah, I'm going to stand back a fair bit.
18 feet, I think is how far I'm going to stand back.
Whoa!
Go on! Go on, James!
Not bad. That was slightly 11 o'clock more than 12, but...
And then he brings it back as though it's - I don't know -
a big pencil or something.
I think he's pretty strong.
This is 50 kilos.
With so much timber in the area and so many streams
that might have needed bridging, you can just about see
where the tradition of caber tossing might have come from.
Either way, it's a tradition I'm now embracing.
Let go, let go!
Balance.
Get over!
Let go!
ROB CHUCKLES
It's really hard!
Come on!
ROB GRUNTS AND PANTS
I nearly damaged my own caber there!
Coming up...
I'm popping in on the Royal Family's Highlands neighbours.
There's definitely some hunting been going on.
There's been a fair bit of hunting.
And I see how the railway mixed great beauty...
Stunning!
..with a spot of demolition.
That was cut off, was it, for the railway? Literally.
I've now crossed the boundary into the Cairngorms National Park.
And from here on in, it's Highlands proper.
30 miles upstream from Aberdeen,
my journey along the old Deeside Railway
is about to get dramatic, as I make my way west from Aboyne.
When Victoria and Albert bought Balmoral, they weren't just buying
a very grand Highland home -
they were buying an entire estate.
And thanks to her great-great-grandmother,
the present Queen currently owns
50,000 acres of land further up the valley.
And she's not alone.
Balmoral itself lies to the south of the river,
but around the valley and the old railway are six other estates,
one of which I'm visiting today.
These lands became a Highland playground
for the rich and the famous, wanting to curry favour with Queen Victoria.
One of them was Manchester banker and MP Sir William Cunliffe Brooks.
From 1865 onwards, he completely transformed
the sprawling estate of Glen Tanar.
Rob, nice to meet you. How you doing?
Welcome to Glen Tanar. Thank you very much.
Ranger Mike Martin has worked on the estate for 20 years.
In you go. Thanks very much, Mike.
HE CHUCKLES
Mike, where have you brought me here?
This is not what I was expecting from the...
It looks almost quaint and dainty from the outside.
All over and around his new estate,
Cunliffe Brooks built roads, bridges and new buildings,
including this one - a true Victorian Highland ballroom.
I don't know what to make of this ceiling. Er...
There's definitely some hunting been going on, hasn't there? There's been a fair bit of hunting.
So, this was a purpose-built entertainment room.
So it was quite an important place for especially Victorians
to while away the evenings.
Hunting and shooting were Cunliffe Brooks' favourite pastimes.
There are some 700 stag heads on this ceiling.
Seven of them were allegedly shot by him in just one day.
Some of the things that you have to do as a Victorian is,
apart from having the money, is having somewhere to shoot,
having somewhere to live
and be as close to the queen as you can possibly get.
And, of course, Queen Victoria was next door in Balmoral.
So, this is the upper echelons of British society.
Cunliffe Brooks - he was from Manchester.
Yes, he's coming from Manchester
at the height of the Industrial Revolution.
I think he's coming here and he's gone,
"This is what I'm looking for.
"And I will build my little bit of paradise."
In the 1860s, the Deeside Railway, was through as well. Yeah.
Do you think that might have been an influence for him coming out?
Oh, I think absolutely. And, so,
part of his building programme was actually building access
towards Aboyne, so that you could then come up on the train... Yep.
..and you could be greeted at Aboyne in your horses and carriages,
and transported to Glen Tanar.
And that's access for him
but I imagine also for his guests who he might invite
to come up and share in this and show off a little bit. Yes.
Oh, he wasn't a shy man.
He really did like to show off.
And that would have been really important,
that people did have that sort of ease of access.
So, yeah, the railway would've been vitally important to him.
The railway brought many a tycoon, politician and celebrity
to this Highland haven.
It even hosted a famous royal mistress.
The actress Lillie Langtry stayed here whilst her lover,
Queen Victoria's son and the future Edward VII,
stayed up the valley at Balmoral.
Lillie is said to have tobogganed down the stairs here
on silver trays -
much to the annoyance of her host, Cunliffe Brooks.
If walls could talk, eh?
I hate to think, sometimes.
But it's not just royal lovers who have visited Glen Tanar.
I don't know if you can recognise
this signature here.
Oh, that's an Elizabeth.
I do recognise that signature -
is that...? That's Queen Elizabeth II. That is our current Queen.
Yes, it's our current Queen. And this was when? This is...
So, 1943. Yeah. And so this is
the current owner's mother's
15th birthday.
And this is the signature
of the Queen Mother
and Princess Margaret.
It's quite exciting, that. It's lovely.
Yes, it's really nice.
69 years earlier, another mother and daughter duo
visited Glen Tana -
Queen Victoria and her ninth child, Beatrice,
came to walk the estate,
stopping off for tea in one of the many woods.
So, we're on the trial of Queen Victoria here, a little bit, Mike?
She just loved Glen Tanar,
but she really did find it quite a place to be.
It's interesting to me because she had her own estate, right?
It is, yes. But she liked to come out and explore
wider than that? Much wider.
And if you look across there,
you'll see this is the stone and seats.
And if you look at the top stone there... Oh, hello, yeah.
Hidden away in there, you've got, oh, 1874.
And then there's the V, Victoria, and the crown on top there.
Whether she actually sat here we don't know.
But it would certainly commemorate Queen Victoria's visit.
One thing's for sure -
she loved the Deeside landscape and all it contained.
HE SIGHS HAPPILY That's better.
It's lovely. Oh, take that in!
But she also shared her subjects' love of hunting.
It was very, very important to them.
They were full-on. Yeah.
Pretty much everything was getting shot at.
What are we talking? Deer, I'm sure.
Yes, there would be lots of deer.
Some extraordinary numbers of rabbits.
The 1874 game book has 10,500 rabbits shot.
That's a huge number. Huge number.
So, what we find in what they call a disposal book was huge lists.
And down left-hand side are names, lots of people -
including a Mr Mitchell, who was the Aboyne Station boss man.
So, he was the head man and they would the rabbits down to him
to hand out to the drivers, the guards
and the people who worked for the railway. Really?
So that was really nice to find that little link between, you know,
shooting, but actually providing food for the local population.
Back on my route, the old railway line has brought me
down alongside the river.
This is such beautiful spot.
Stunning!
Here at Cambus o'May, the station opened in 1876
as a second intermediate stop between Aboyne and Ballater.
Now, at first, it was just a halt with a simple platform here,
but this quaint little station building was added
just a little later on.
Cambus o'May had a front-row seat overlooking the Dee.
In 1896, this pretty setting is said to have been the scene of a picnic
laid on for the Russian royal family.
An ageing Queen Victoria
hosted Tsar Nicholas II at Balmoral for an entire month.
His wife, Tsarina Alexandra,
just happened to be her favourite grandchild.
But 500 metres upstream,
my next stop-off is the delightfully named Cut-a-way Cottage.
Hello. Hello there. How you doing? I'm good, thank you.
Am I in your garden? Sorry.
You are indeed, but it's not a problem.
This is the Deeside Way. Feel free to ramble on.
Excellent. Nice to meet you.
Hello, I'm Rob. Rob. Geoff.
Geoff's cottage once housed the ferryman,
whose job was to transport folk across the Dee
before Cambus o'May's wonderful footbridge was built.
So, this would have been here when the railway went in? Yes, indeed.
So, you're not physically standing on the railway line at the moment
as the Deeside Way just swings around the back of the house.
Just looking over towards that woodpile over there,
the railway line actually runs that side of the cottage. Did it? OK.
The cottage gets its name, Cut-a-way Cottage, from the fact
that the corner of the house, or the gable end,
has been removed to allow the passage of the rather wide
Victorian carriages and the steam train at the time.
It would have had a thatched roof and, of course, the steam engine
would have created a fire hazard.
So it was then converted into a stated roof.
Yeah, thatched roof would not have gone down well at all. Exactly.
Did you want to take a look? I don't want to disturb you.
Can I...? No, please. Yeah, come on, then.
Help yourself. Just follow me through this gate.
Just come this way, Rob.
What are we actually...seeing here?
So, this is the corner of Cut-a-way Cottage...
Right. ..just here.
Ah! Now I see it. It's not until you stand here that you see -
there's a chunk here that looks like it has been cut off
and that was cut off, was it, for the railway?
Literally. It's quirky.
It came along this side of the house
and because the house is in the way,
we'll have that corner off, thanks very much.
I've never seen anything like that.
Listen, Geoff, I don't want to keep you any longer
and I hope I haven't disturbed you.
Really nice to meet you, Geoff. You, too, Rob.
Thanks for the little tour. After you.
Coming up...
I see the station that's welcomed every monarch
since Queen Victoria...
I've arrived - I'm here in Ballater.
..try a sausage made for a royal baby...
Oh, yeah, there's a little kick.
..and there's the famous home at the end of the railway.
Here we are, then - Balmoral Castle.
By the early 1860s, the Highland valley of Deeside
was becoming one of the most talked-about spots in the country.
This was no longer just Deeside.
It had become Royal Deeside.
Queen Victoria was a confirmed fan.
And the Deeside Railway hadn't even been finished yet.
Over more than a decade, the railway crept its way
up the valley from Aberdeen, village by village.
In 1866, the Highland village of Ballater was reached,
making the end of the line less than ten miles from Balmoral.
How you doing?
And in Ballater itself, the station got very used to welcoming royalty.
Nice to see you, Rob. Very nice to meet you.
A long way from Aberdeen, is it? It's been a little way, yeah,
but I've arrived - I'm here in Ballater. Good.
Here to welcome me
is chair of the local history society - Alistair Cassie.
It was a very long platform because of the length of the royal train,
bearing in mind it had two engines to pull the carriages,
a lot of carriages, and possibly staff quarters and possibly pets -
dogs and what have you - all on one train.
Was there quite a lot of organisation
for the Deeside Railway, then, to have a royal train come through?
Well, there was a lot of work went on and all the gates,
farm gates, were all locked
and police were on duty at all the road crossings, just for safety.
The pomp and ceremony continued
outside the front of the station,
from where every monarch
since Queen Victoria has set off
for the final few miles to Balmoral.
It's quite a big square, actually, isn't it?
A big square. Beautiful building.
The area had to be fairly big, because horse and carriage
took quite a big circle to turn.
So, it's always been a huge event. A huge event.
It's a big event then. It was a big event
when I remember the Queen coming here.
Well, I was taken down by the schoolteacher
with our little Union Jacks and we'd line up
and watch the queen coming in and wave the flag.
Not many places in the UK get that sort of treatment.
The railway closed over 50 years ago,
and these days the royals simply touch down at Aberdeen Airport
and breeze through here by car.
But this remains the closest big community to Balmoral
and there's evidence of that all around.
Look up here. By royal appointment to Her Majesty the Queen,
and just to the right of it, to the Prince of Wales.
Loads of royal warrants have been issued here,
showing that many local traders
have been supplying the Royals for years.
Look - the Chinese takeaway's even got one.
Nah - its for the bakery next door.
And if the baker's has a warrant,
then it's only fair that the butcher has one too.
Oh. Hello. Is it John? Yes.
Hi. How you doing? Hello, John. Good to meet you. You too.
HM Sheridan has been recognised
for serving the Royal Household since 1987.
When the royal household are here in the summertime,
we supply Balmoral with their meat, their game and their poultry.
Prince of Wales himself's been in.
We've had the Queen at the door.
We've had the Duke of Edinburgh.
And we've also had Camilla in. Wow! So, yeah, we're privileged.
Well, you're obviously doing something right. Yeah, hopefully.
Is there anything special that you'll do for royals? Well, we specialise in a lot of sausages.
They do like their barbecues in the summer,
so we do make a lot of sausages.
They ask the recipe, we make them for them.
But I'm not going to tell you what they make,
cos it's a secret for the royals themselves. So, it's...
You make secret special recipes for the royals?
Yes, we do, aye. And you can't tell me what's in those?
I'm not telling you what they are. It wouldn't be a secret any more. Yeah, fair enough.
But John's less reticent
when it comes to a new market he's cornered -
marking the arrival of royal babies.
We've actually created one - the Dumbarton sausage -
for Prince Archie. Of course.
Yeah. Brand-new royal arrival.
There's a wee sample for you. I'll try it, John. Right.
You have a guess. Yeah, I'll have a go. See what you think's in it.
Already the colour's telling me something. Yeah.
This is fun. I could do this all day.
Oh, yeah, there's a little kick. There's a little...
It's got some chillies and some ginger and some barbecue sauce.
Obviously, we used the American theme of the New York sausage.
So, that's what? The American theme, that's having the...
Chilli and barbecue, yes. A wee bit of ginger,
just to give it a wee bit of extra kick.
Is that Prince Harry? Yes.
Is that a little reference to his old...? Yes.
Just a wee bit of fun there as well, yeah.
And it makes a better flavour of sausage. It's absolutely delicious!
And when they're here in the summertime,
we will be sending some up to them to try.
So, with a bit of luck,
John's royal warrant will be safe for a while yet.
Ballater, meanwhile, can count itself lucky -
because if events 150 years ago had played out differently,
the royal connections here might have been greatly reduced.
Now, Ballater Station, the end of the line,
is a couple of hundred yards back in that direction.
Now, it's not obvious, but this wall is the wall of a bridge
that runs over what is a clearly cut path down here
that was once meant to be the continuation of the Deeside Railway
further west out of Ballater.
Work to extend the line
began within two years of the railway's arrival.
This flat track is exactly
where the railway extension was being built.
Just look at the amount of work that went into it.
This enormous retaining wall, built entirely out of granite.
The plan was to build the railway into the upper reaches of Deeside -
an area rich in timber,
just waiting to be cut down and transported by rail -
but a mile out of Ballater,
this small bridge is as far as construction ever got.
Just on the other side of this river
is the beginning of the Balmoral Estate.
Queen Victoria was well aware of the plans to use the railway to help
with the removal of thousands more trees from the valley -
an idea she thought would ruin the place forever.
So she acted quickly.
Not only did she buy up the forested land herself,
she also had enough strong words with enough influential people
to ensure that railway construction was stopped
and that any plans for the extension were halted forever.
So the uppermost parts of Deeside never got their railway...
..and Queen Victoria's actions in saving the forest
have been heralded as the Highlands' first act of conservation.
Here we are, then, just beneath here - Balmoral Castle...
..with the Upper Deeside Valley
stretching out into the distance beyond.
It's not bad spot, really, is it?
Between Queen Victoria and the Deeside Railway,
they completely transformed this place.
Within just a few years of the line arriving to Ballater,
10,000 people a year made their way up to visit.
In the space of just one queen's reign,
the wild and distant Highlands of Scotland
had made it onto everyone's bucket list.
And you can see why.
Next time...
Just have a look at this.
..I'm amongst the rich and royals of unspoilt Norfolk.
We don't have a motorway up here. We don't want one.
..following a railway that threatened to change everything.
We've got some mighty massive buildings here!
It put Norfolk on the front line of the war...
That is absolutely enormous!
..and created a holiday hotspot.
We're reaching the top. Here we go! Woo-hoo!
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