Trainspotting Live

Broadcast live from Didcot Rail Centre, in the middle of the Great Western Railway, Peter Snow is joined by some of the most enthusiastic and passionate train lovers, collectors and enthusiasts from across the country. Peter meets poet and rail fan Ian McMillan, challenging him to write a new poem about the iconic Flying Scotsman to images filmed by members of the public as the train went on a recent journey. Dr Hannah Fry adds mathematical insight to these incredible machines by exploring how these massive engines stay on the rails and the effect that the rail network had on timekeeping across the whole of the country. Engineer Dick Strawbridge is in Doncaster on the trail of a workhorse of the network, the Class 66, and he also visits the National Railway Museum in York to explore how this most British of pastimes began. With spotters based across the length and breadth of the country, including resident spotter Tim Dunn in the Scottish Highlands tracking down the only steam engine working on the line during the live programme, Trainspotting Live provides a snapshot of the whole network during the hour, providing analysis and context, and revelling in this unique and wonderful world.

Peter Snow and Dr Hannah Fry present live from Didcot Railway Centre. Peter is joined by Bob Gwynne, curator at the National Railway Museum, to apply his incredible knowledge of the British rail system to the live images coming in. Hannah is out and about at Didcot, working out the equations that meant that the move from steam to diesel power was inevitable. She also meets Sir Kenneth Grange, the man responsible for many design classics including the famous Intercity 125 which is this episode's focus for the spotters up and down the country. Dick Strawbridge is on the hunt for a very special example of that train in Swindon, and also meets the group trying to buy and preserve the original prototype. Tim Dunn has moved south to Carlisle to spot one of the trainspotters' favourite locomotives, the Class 37. All of this, plus a man that has collected thousands of locomotive number plates and a short film about the 'flying banana'.

In this final episode of the series from Didcot, Dr Hannah Fry and Peter Snow look towards the future of rail travel. Hannah explores how the timetables work and whether they can squeeze in extra capacity in the future. She also looks back to what the future could have looked like had Brunel's broad gauge track system become the standard over a hundred years ago. Engineer Dick Strawbridge meets some young volunteers who are preserving locomotives and learning the engineering techniques to keep the network running, and he is live from Clapham Junction, one of the busiest commuter rail stations in Europe. Tim Dunn is after another live rare spot, a mail train which runs cards and letters around Britain and is powered by a unique class of locomotive. He also gets to ride on a train so futuristic it isn't even on the network yet. Back at Didcot, Peter is joined by Gerry Barney, who designed the British Rail logo, something that has stayed constant through years of rail upheaval and is still a design classic today.