Well, I suppose it all began when I was a kid, really.
I can remember my dad coming home and telling us stories of things he'd seen...
and then he'd take me to places where I could see these things as well.
Embankments, cuttings, entrances to tunnels.
And there'd be the usual books and photos passed around at school.
Like kids do.
Then a couple of friends said would I like to try the real thing?
I said, "Yes." From then on...
Well, I admit it. I was hooked.
(TICKING)
(TRAIN WHISTLE)
(BIG BEN CHIMES)
(HORN HONKS)
I must say, I do like railways - perhaps not quite as much as I did 25 years ago.
Then my idea of happiness was to stand on Sheffield Midland station
on a rain-soaked platform
with a notebook, a pencil, a soggy pork pie and a bottle of Tizer.
Will the journey I'm setting out on mean as much now as it would have done then?
When to travel the length of Britain by rail was an inaccessible dream.
Well, we'll see.
- Bye! Goodbye. - Bye!
Bye!
I'm going to Kyle of Lochalsh in north-west Scotland
and I've decided to go all the way by train - just because it's still possible -
and to find out if there is anything of the trainspotter left in me.
I've got my old spotters' book. "lan Allan, ABC" of 1955.
Every engine I saw was neatly underlined.
Lady Godiva, Seychelles, Howard of Effingham. Still, mustn't get sentimental.
Railways nowadays have to be practical and cost effective.
Which is why St Pancras Station of the 1860s looks like this
and Euston Station of the 1960s looks like this.
Euston always reminds me of a giant bath.
Lots of slippery marble and glass surfaces
so that people can be sloshed quickly and efficiently around.
All 65,000 of them daily to 200 destinations -
from London to the north of Scotland.
(ANN0UNCER)... for the 12.55 calling at Stafford, Crewe, Wilmslow,
Stockport and Manchester, Piccadilly.
The buffet car is in the centre of the train...
(PALIN) You're not encouraged to linger in Euston - that's why there aren't any seats.
They don't want people sticking to the bath.
You just check your ticket and off down the plughole.
There's not much to see down here.
They've taken the tea rooms and the bars away from the trains.
What are engines nowadays anyway? Just machines to get you from A to B.
I wonder why they still give them names.
0ne reminder of the old-style railways that's still left is the Manchester Pullman.
Last survivor of luxury travel.
For first-class fare, plus a bit more, you can still get pampered with waiter service.
It's the way to travel or, if the BBC are paying, you can just watch it,
secure in the knowledge that Pullmans won't be with us for much longer.
In the age of the train, it's going to be Inter-City for everyone.
The start of a train journey - one of the great sensations of life.
It's hard to believe I'll be on railway lines from here to the Isle of Skye.
It's a pity they don't call trains like this "expresses" any more.
But they have tried to keep the human touch.
(ANN0UNCER) British Rail welcomes you to the Euston to Manchester service.
The reason for the late start from Euston this morning...
they had not got a guard for the train.
Personally, I'm not on duty till half past ten, but I happened to be at Euston a bit early.
- Coffee? - Yes, please. I think so.
I need something. It's going so slowly today.
- Would you like a sandwich? - No. I'll just have the coffee.
That's 21, please.
How many more trips have you got to do today on this train?
Two.
So you go up to Manchester and then back down to Euston again, do you?
From Manchester, we go back to London, then back to Liverpool.
What time do they start you in the morning?
- Quarter to six. - That's when you have to get to the train?
The station, yeah. Half past four to get up.
Well, I hope the coffee's good. There's nothing in it.
Along this stretch was set one of British Railways' many world records -
the record for lifting large sums of money out of trains.
In 1963, the night mail was relieved here of £2.25 million -
enough for 600,000 Awaydays to Brighton.
This was the first refreshment stop outside London before they put food on trains,
when they had to serve entire expresses in ten minutes flat.
- (TILLS RING) - A large brown Windsor!
- Kedgeree for two, please! - Devilled kidneys, please.
- Got any muffins? - 18 teas, quickly.
A crate of stout and 24 glasses, please.
You'd have to move fast to get a sausage roll nowadays.
100 miles an hour now as we pass the Grand Junction Canal,
built 33 years before they opened this railway.
No wonder the canal owners hated the railways - they had spent a lot of money
on what was becoming Britain's shortest-lived transport revolution.
130 years later, the railways themselves had to fight an even bigger threat.
Who needed crowded, unpunctual trains
when you could drive from London to Birmingham in a couple of hours?
But now the M1 is overcrowded
and with canals undergoing a revival and railways electrified,
the talk's all of an "integrated transport system", so nobody won.
Someone told me that engine drivers were instructed to go to full speed
whenever they're alongside a road. It's a nice story.
Crewel A trainspotter's dream.
In 1841 it was one farmhouse.
Since then Crewe has built thousands of locomotives
and, in common with other railway towns like Darlington and Doncaster,
runs a football team that's permanently at the bottom of the Fourth Division.
Despite the horrors painted by the early opposition to railways -
hens ceasing to lay, pregnant women miscarrying,
pheasants dying before they could be shot -
technological progress in the early 19th century was unstoppable.
30 miles from Jodrell Bank,
the world's first regular passenger railway service began on September 15th 1830.
It ran between Liverpool and Manchester.
This is a replica of the engine that made it possible - George Stephenson's Rocket.
Built in 1829, it started a love affair that's lasted ever since.
(MUSIC: COVER VERSION OF "AND I LOVE HER" BY THE BEATLES)
# I give her all my love
# That's all I do
# And if you saw my love
# You'd love her too
# I love her
# She gives me everything
# And tenderly
# The kiss my lover brings
# She brings to me
# And I love her
# A love like ours
# Could never die
# As long as I
# Have you near me
# Bright are the stars that shine
# Dark is the sky
# I know this love of mine
# Will never die
# And I love her... #
(FAINT BAGPIPE MUSIC)
I suppose true railway buffs love all engines -
short, fat, squat, long, rumbling, smelly diesels or swiftly silent electrics -
but, most of all, they love steam.
And the most famous steam engine of them all is Flying Scotsman.
Built in 1923, retired in 1963, and still going strong.
The first locomotive to 100 miles an hour.
I couldn't miss this trip - and I'm not the only one either.
She's like an old film star now. Everything she says is faithfully recorded.
Every inch of her body explored by a thousand lenses.
Is it just us who are like this - the British?
Are there any trainspotters in Sicily?
Do Belgians go misty-eyed at the thought of seeing the 12. 16 to Antwerp?
Do Swedes save up all year for a Hasselblad
to photograph a Stockholm to Gothenburg coal train breasting a one-in-57 gradient?
I think the root of the love affair lies in the cab.
This is where the important people travel.
Bill McAlpine, whose money keeps Flying Scotsman going,
and the driver and the fireman recreating the days
when physical human effort drove railway trains.
And these are their fans.
I'll try and identify those two stations.
It's a very simple tape recorder.
- I'm recording the sound of the locomotive. - Throughout the journey?
Throughout most of the journey, yes.
On the downhill stretches you don't hear much.
You get the best recordings when she's pulling.
When do you play these? At home?
We have stereophonic locomotives steaming through the house at all times.
I think it's great to be able to travel on a train like this - The Flying Scotsman.
I'm 71 years of age and this is my only way of travelling...
in my younger days, was travelling on steam trains.
I think it's one of the nicest days I've had out.
It's brought back memories. Great memories too.
It's travelling behind steam - The Flying Scotsman.
Reliving the age of steam of yesteryear. Reminding me of many journeys of my youth.
It's a living machine that has a tremendous attraction for me.
I just like seeing it work, particularly travelling with them.
I go as much as the money will allow.
It's sight, sound and emotion.
You like the look of the wheels going round - the motion of the driving wheels -
and you also enjoy the sound of it and the sight.
It's magnificent. People have love affairs with steam engines.
Have you always been interested in railways?
Very nearly. There was a short period when I became interested in girls -
at the usual age - and eventually I got married.
Then I went back to railways again
and combined the married life with playing trains.
Thousands of people have turned out to watch us all playing trains
and to stare enviously at the lucky hundreds inside watching themselves being stared at.
Wensleydale?
And the even luckier few who've spurned packed lunches
in order to eat a four-course meal behind Flying Scotsman.
What could be nicer than sipping large gin and tonics
through the Yorkshire coalfields?
I'm being Queen for a day. Now I know what our Queen feels like.
All these beautiful people and the joy on their faces when they saw us coming.
It's tremendous. What has happened?
We've forgotten all about the steam train, haven't we?
Manchester to York in 1980, but the image could be any time in the last 60 years.
It's an enduring image of England -
that made the Englishman abroad go misty-eyed
and reach sadly for the whisky bottle.
The England of "Thomas The Tank Engine" and "The Railway Children"
when the trains were always friendly.
The Scotsman, having satisfied her audience with another 0scar-winning performance,
strolls in rather leisurely fashion to a curtain call at York.
With its superb curving roof, 800 feet long and over 100 years old,
York Station holds its own with the great buildings outside -
the Norman cathedral, the city wall...
and the National Railway Museum - definitely worth missing a train for.
Not just preserved locos, but seats, signs, posters,
toys, teacups, buttons and other bits of the railway age.
(AMERICAN ACCENT) Is that a replica of the crown, do you suppose?
- Indeed. With the lions and unicorns. - I wonder who Stephenson was.
I hope the Americans haven't missed this.
It's called Agenoria,
and its sister engine, Stourbridge Lion, was exported to the USA in 1829
to be the first steam locomotive to run on the American continent.
Which type can go further without refuelling? The tank or the tender?
The tender. That's correct. Circle it.
Which type is better for short-distance work?
The tank. That's correct.
Mallard - still the world's fastest steam locomotive.
With Sir Nigel Gresley's streamlining, it reached 126 miles an hour in July 1938.
(CHILDREN ALL TALK AT ONCE)
It looks like a fire engine.
- It's the Mallard. - Hey, look.
The golden age of steam is preserved here -
in aspic, perhaps, but with care and love and respect.
Not all steam engines were retired quite so gracefully.
There are engines here I would have waited all day to see when I was a trainspotter.
Deltic - one of the big diesels built to replace steam in 1962.
I could have caught one to Scotland,
but I wanted to see what railways are like away from the main lines.
Well, some of them have been dug up -
like the one I wanted to travel on between York and Pickering.
The end of steam also meant the end for 5,000 miles of track,
sacrificed by Dr Beeching in order to save the rest of the system.
But not everyone let their trains go that easily.
It was just a big heap of rust with no copper pipes, no fittings.
Absolutely nothing. It was just rust. No paint or anything.
These are the workshops of the North York Moors Railway.
It's hard to believe what's going on here. It's like being in a time warp.
What goes on in here? Are they put together?
That's right.
You're obviously taking the wheels off this locomotive. Why are these being removed?
They're getting slightly worn now. Metal on metal wears eventually.
They've been taken out to be turned.
What happens with restoring, say, a cab like that? Where do you get the parts?
Some we make ourselves, others we buy as rough castings or as complete units.
How much would a locomotive like this cost when it comes here, in its present state?
This particular one, I believe, cost about £3,000-4,000 off British Railways.
And how much once you've got to work on it? What would it be worth then?
Once it's in first-class condition
it could be worth anything up to £90,000, depending on who wants to buy it.
- And people are buying locomotives? - Yes.
There's one up for sale now for 90,000, if anybody's interested.
You do this work and it's fairly grimy.
Why do you do it? Why do you spend so much time with locomotives?
The enjoyment of it. I don't really know why I do it. I'm mad about steam engines.
Thank you very much, sir.
To the end of the line, please. Where's that?
- Grosmont Junction. A single? - Yes, please.
- How far is it? - 18 miles.
- You don't go near Edinburgh? - I'm afraid not.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)
The North York Moors Railway was opened by the Duchess of Kent
four years after Dr Beeching closed it.
There are 67 other privately owned lines in Britain.
Between them they've saved 300 miles of track and nearly 500 steam locomotives.
This is one of the oldest lines in the country,
engineered by the same man who built Rocket - George Stephenson.
It's quite a difficult route and Stephenson had to improvise.
To carry the line over marshy ground, his solution was to stitch animal skins together,
fill them with ballast and float the line on top.
It still works and still carries passengers.
We come up twice a year - at the beginning of the season, May/June,
and then August/September.
- The season? The railway spotting season? - Yes.
And the holiday season. We don't get so many holidaymakers.
- Regularly? - Yes. Twice a year, every year.
- How many years have you been doing that? - About 16.
Why? Is it just this railway that draws you or all railways?
Well, we combine a holiday in Whitby, Robin Hood's Bay,
with the railway as well.
But we go trainspotting all round the country during the year as well.
0ne bonus for me is the sight of my favourite steam engine -
the Stanier Black Fives.
(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)
They were the stock-in-trade in Sheffield.
Unpretentious, straightforward and hard-working.
This really is a marvellous line.
It was very reluctantly that I left it to go back to British Rail reality.
(BIRDS TWITTER, SHEEP BLEAT)
(TRAIN HORN)
Ah, the familiar cry of the lesser-spotted DMU.
DMU is short for Diesel Multiple Units.
Although many of these are operating beyond their planned life span,
they're the mainstay of British Rail's running headache - the "rural" services.
If we're going to have a national rail network,
then lines like these have to be kept alive.
This is the Esk Valley line, running from Whitby to Middlesbrough -
from a seaside town to an important city in the centre of a large industrial area.
Its closure was recommended by Beeching, but it survived.
There have been closure scares since.
These country lines have never been allowed the luxury of feeling secure.
Approaching Battersby Junction.
Here, the driver has to hand in his token.
It's a safety precaution. No one can enter a stretch of single line
unless they've been given the token by the token man or, in this case, the token woman.
Yeah. Are there many other signal... ladies?
- Yes. There's two others on this branch. - Do you all get together?
- Is it hard working one of these? - Physically, yes.
Is there a knack? I mean, I've never operated a signal. Could I have a go?
- Sure. - I've got to catch a train in a minute.
- Which one shall I do? - Just a moment.
"Whitby Branch Passenger lock." They all look impressive.
I don't want to start a derailment.
- If you pull on number one. - Right.
So what do I do? Just let this off here and... I see what you mean.
Not very elegant, was I? Whoo!
It was only 20 miles from here that railways were born.
In 1824, a Quaker businessman believed enough in George Stephenson
to put up the money for a line to carry coal between Darlington and Stockton.
It opened on 27th September 1825.
It was the first railway journey ever.
Some of the achievements of that great day still exist.
Like Skerne Bridge.
Which is still carrying trains, using the same gauge that Stephenson chose.
Believe it or not, even the engine itself can still be seen.
Locomotion dazzled the world at a speed of eight miles an hour.
Now, after 155 years of evolution, the engine looks like this.
The world's fastest diesel express - the Inter-City 125, the high-speed train.
Flying Scotsman took eight hours from London to Edinburgh,
the Deltic cut this to six,
and now the high-speed train can take you in four hours and 37 minutes.
And it's air-conditioned.
I used to... It was in Sheffield.
The main lines seemed to miss Sheffield, so about eight engines used to come through
in various permutations.
- But it was... - You travel a long way trainspotting.
You didn't, really, because you didn't have the money to go far.
The sort of places I'm going to and staying in hotels which look out over stations,
it would be an absolute dream.
I'd be over the moon if I was a trainspotter.
When you pass a place like Durham,
you realise how much Victorian engineers changed everything.
This famous view of the city wasn't possible before 1869,
when the railway viaduct was built high above it.
Tyneside, where Stephenson experimented with his first locomotives.
(BEEPING)
170 years later, Tyneside could be giving railways a lead again.
This is the Metro - Newcastle's new local railway system,
equipped with the latest computers, electronic surveillance,
vandal-proof stations.
Control to 102. Confirm your position. Over.
If it works, it could do for local railways what high-speed trains are doing nationally.
Someone told me there was once talk of naming the high-speed train sets.
As they have a locomotive at either end, some wag suggested famous couples,
like David and Goliath or Laurel and Hardy, Castor and Pollux.
Which is fine if they never broke down,
but you might see Laurel and Pollux on the ten o'clock or Spencer and Castor.
Mind you, Goliath and Hardy sounds an interesting act.
Do you still call it the footplate?
Well, the younger end prefer to call it the cab,
but for the older end it's still a footplate.
We still refer to the footplate. Sometimes the cab.
Is there a very different sort of spirit to driving these HSTs now amongst the men?
I would imagine with firing and driving a steam engine,
there's a feeling of teamwork and getting it through by your own sweat.
There's a big thing to say for that.
You could get an engine which wasn't steaming very well...
These things you just open the throttle and that's it.
But different steam engines had different characteristics.
Some we had to fire with a big heavy fire. Others had a very light fire.
You'll notice, as we approach a green light -
about 200 yards this side of it - you'll hear a bell.
Modern signalling is more difficult than the old signalling.
All you can see are green lights - a green light is a green light.
Semaphore signals had their own characteristics.
This gantry meant you were passing so and so.
(PALIN) I see. The gantry meant you could relate that to the place you were passing.
With landmarks, it was what we could see, what we could hear, what we could smell.
Now we're cut off from the outside world.
That all sounds as though it's a rather dull job now being an engine driver.
Everyone wanted to be an engine driver. Is it boring now?
No, it's not boring. You've got something to do all the time.
If I miss that and press my foot there, the brakes go on, you see.
You've only got a second and a half. Same with this one.
You've only got a second and a half to press that.
If I don't, the brakes go on, you can't get them off. It takes two minutes.
Really? So that's the fail-safe system.
The brakes will go off. If you don't correct these devices, the train will stop for two minutes.
- We're speeding up a bit now, are we? - We're getting up to 100 miles an hour.
A good stretch, this.
The East Coast main line - one of the classic routes.
Along the Northumbrian cliffs, up towards Berwick and across the border into Scotland.
And so at last to Edinburgh.
Let's look in the guide book...
"Edinburgh. Athens of the North, home of Burns, Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson
"and the Royal Palace of Holyrood.
"Nestling beneath the extinct volcano they call Arthur's Seat.
"Inspired by the castle above them, Edinburgh's buildings strive for grandeur."
Ah, this sounds good. "The railway hotels are amongst the finest.
"The Caledonian at one end of Princes Street and at the other the North British,
"where the weary traveller can get his first taste of the graciousness of this fine city."
392 miles from London. 262 still to go.
It won't be a high-speed train through the Highlands.
Probably a couple of Class 47s.
(BAND PLAYS "WHEN I'M 64")
I was lucky to get a bath.
It's Festival time here in Edinburgh and the place is packed.
I love these railway hotels.
They reflect confidence on an epic scale.
We're used to people apologising for the railways,
but when this was built in 1903, the railway companies spent money like water,
secure in the knowledge that they had transport absolutely sewn up.
The result is corridors big enough for cricket,
stairs wide enough for Busby Berkeley musicals
and a lobby big enough for the Battle of Culloden.
At this time of year there are 335 people at the North British
and the trouser-pressing service is going berserk.
Everybody wants to be out seeing things.
# I've got a clock that wakes me every morning for my train... #
A show full of sparkle and drive. Thank you.
I have removed the worker's worker card, which leaves her employed.
# Faustus, you're the leading man
# You've got money, you've got fame, you've got power
# Faustus, you're the leading man
# Surely this must be your finest hour... #
The choice of where to go is almost impossible - unless you're a trainspotter.
- Yes, sir? - I want a train for the Kyle of Lochalsh.
- You'll have to change at Inverness. - I can't go straight through?
- No. - When's the train to Inverness?
The train for Inverness is 0945 in the morning. Number 17.
OK. Thanks very much. Cheerio.
(STIRRING MILITARY MARCH)
The biggest show is at the castle - the Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
It's a noisy, glittering, stirring Scottish spectacular.
And this year it's not only the men who are in skirts.
(BAND PLAYS JAZZ VERSION OF "DIXIE")
Mind you, I didn't hear a thing. I was having this wonderful dream.
Even in the age of Concorde, moon buggies and microprocessors,
I defy anyone to be unmoved by the Forth Railway Bridge.
It was built at the end of the last century.
If you want to make one yourself, the recipe is 54,160 tons of steel,
740,000 tons of granite, 48,400 cubic yards of stone,
64,300 cubic yards of concrete, 21,000 tons of cement
and 6.5 million rivets.
And this was built in an age when the only alternative to rail was a horse and trap.
It's only when you're over the Forth Bridge that Scotland really seems to begin.
We're on the Highland line which goes up through Perth.
Though it goes over the highest summits on British Rail,
100 miles of it were built in less than two years.
Victorian energy and railway navvies.
Inverness. I'm 180 miles north of Edinburgh now -
700 miles by rail and taxi since I left London -
and I still haven't seen the words "Kyle of" or "Lochalsh" on a railway timetable.
But Inverness is the last change, so I might be in luck.
Ah, there we are. Hm.
0h. Four hours to kill.
I get twitchy about leaving stations when I know there's a connection in the offing,
but four hours is four hours
and it's good for a railway-philiac like myself to tear himself away from trains.
Do a bit of sightseeing, buy a souvenir of old Inverness
and see what normal people do around here.
(PLAYS LIVELY TUNE)
Which brought me to my first Highland Games.
I thought they were huge affairs, but this one's quite cosy.
It's a local occasion, very friendly.
They have 20 or 30 events going on simultaneously, which looks a bit dangerous.
I don't know how many Highland dancers get killed by hammers,
or tug-of-war teams decimated by shot putters,
or spectators squashed by freshly tossed cabers.
0ne of these contestants was interesting - a railwayman from the Kyle of Lochalsh line.
- What do you do at the station? - I work in the booking office.
Mainly deal with parcels and signal duties and various things.
I'm going to see the line. What do you think of the line itself?
It's a beautiful line. Very scenic. Very busy at this time of year.
The railway to the Kyle of Lochalsh.
In summer, a 1897 restaurant car serves as an observation coach.
(GUIDE) You see some interesting shore birds here, particularly the grey heron.
On the right side, we have the Black Isle.
The Black Isle got its name from when the Norsemen came over here.
They stole and plundered and burnt everything behind them.
Here, devotees of fine landscape can see and, courtesy of a British Rail guide,
hear about the passing delights.
Beauly got its name when Mary, Queen of Scots stayed here
and when she awoke, she remarked, "What a beautiful place."
Coming from the French "beau lieu" meaning "beautiful place", hence Beauly.
- (AMERICAN ACCENT) It's a grand car. - Do they have cars like this in the States?
- I've never ridden on a train in the States. - Never been on a train?
Jean MacKenzie has been travelling this line since the year it opened - 1897.
I went out in a ferry boat to a beach.
I went on this big boat and it took me to Strome.
Then I went on to Inverness and Glasgow.
And when was that? How many years ago?
Oh, that was when I was 14.
- How old are you now? - How old I am?
- Yes. - I'm only 99.
Only 99? Oh, a slip of a girl!
They call this the Skye Line and it runs through gloomily beautiful country.
Country which looks as if it's out of Tolkien,
with names like the Valley of Drizzel, Raven Rock and the Blackwater.
The lochs, lonely crags and moors it passes through
are thick with legends of giants and beasts,
and one particular witch known as Hairy Agnes.
Honestly. It says so in my British Rail brochure.
The last ten miles to the Kyle, which looks so deceptively idyllic,
took four years to blast out of solid rock.
There are few lines in Britain which were as hard won as these.
Suddenly we're at the end of the line, the end of the journey.
In three hours, ten minutes we've crossed Scotland from the North Sea to the Atlantic.
Along the station, dozens of backpacks rise into the air like a medieval army.
This is, believe it or not, Kyle of Lochalsh.
And there, 785.5 railway miles from Euston, is the Isle of Skye.
Now I think I deserve to buy myself a drink.
- Good morning, sir. - Lovely. Thank you very much.
What a beautiful place for a hangover.
It's just so...
so terribly, terribly...
Scottish.
(BAGPIPES PLAY)
Still, I didn't come here just to look at the scenery.
"Kyle of Lochalsh. Here at last.
"Am going to collect it after breakfast."
I don't want to go, but I've got an appointment at ten o'clock.
If they ever do a series on "great breakfast table views of the world",
how about this one?
There can't be that many people who come to such a remote corner of Scotland
just to keep a business appointment, especially on a four-day train journey.
But there are objects in the Kyle which you can't get anywhere else.
Where was it? Post office, telephone box on the right... and there we are.
- Michael Palin from London. - Pleased to meet you. It all arrived OK.
- Have you got it ready? - Yes. Do you realise how big it is?
Doesn't matter how big it is so long as it's there.
- There we are. - Oh, that's fantastic.
- Yeah. That's beautiful. It is big. - It is, isn't it?
I was going to put it on my wall, but we'll have to get another three houses.
Great. How am I going to get this back?
We can send it down on the train. There's one leaving in an hour.
I wanted to go on the West Highland Line because I've done this one.
How do I get to the West Highland Line?
Go over on the ferry to Kyleakin, then you get a bus to Armadale,
then you can get the ferry to Mallaig and pick the train up there down to Glasgow.
- Great. So... ferry from Kyle to Skye. - That's it.
Bus across Skye to Armadale. Ferry Armadale to Mallaig.
- Pick up the train at Mallaig for Glasgow. - That's it.
- Great. Thanks very much indeed. - That's fine. Bye-bye.
Kyle of Lochalsh. My very own station sign.
Now there's only 4,728 left to get.
Trainspotting is all about collecting,
whether it's numbers or the sounds of Flying Scotsmen.
It's wanting to have a part of something which is in your blood.
I've discovered on this journey that my love affair with railways never really did end
and I don't suppose it ever will.
Now, where are we going? 560 miles back to Euston.
Through Fort William, go past Ben Nevis,
over Glenfinnan Viaduct, across Rannoch Moor,
past the highest station in Britain...