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Gregg Wallace accesses huge factories that use extraordinary engineering processes to make our most iconic vehicle.

When he was a child, Gregg loved playing with toy trainsets. Now he’s got special access to learn how the ultimate model is made: a huge 187-tonne, five-carriage electric train. At the 84-acre Alstom factory site in Derby, each one takes up to a thousand hours to complete.

Gregg follows every step of the process, from the delivery of vast lengths of aluminium and a 15,000-degree welding operation to the carriages' assembly with a set of enormous cranes. He learns about such parts of the train's design as the dead man's pedal and the importance of electrification - all before getting to drive the newly finished train himself.

Meanwhile, Cherry Healey travels to Scotland to visit the UK’s last remaining factory that produces aluminium via smelting. She also visits an HS2 construction site to learn how two huge tunnel boring machines are digging ten miles through the hills.

Historian Ruth Goodman is energised by the history of electric trains as she learns that the UK’s first was a tourist train that is still in use along the Brighton seafront. The technology pioneered in the seaside town went on to be used in underground transportation all over the world.

7 days left to watch

59 minutes

Last on

Thu 29 Aug 2024 21:00
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Two

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:01

    The Pigeon Detectives

    Everybody Wants Me

  • 00:03

    AC/DC

    Highway To Hell

  • 00:05

    Tame Impala

    Music To Walk Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ By

  • 00:38

    The Maccabees

    Love You Better

  • 00:39

    Bastille

    These Streets (Glastonbury 2016)

  • 00:39

    George Ezra

    Shotgun

  • 00:41

    Rizzle Kicks

    Lost Generation

  • 00:42

    The Pigeon Detectives

    Caught In Your Trap

  • 00:42

    The Pigeon Detectives

    Caught In Your Trap

  • 00:42

    The Pigeon Detectives

    Caught In Your Trap

  • 00:42

    Giles Palmer, Rupert Pope

    The World Is Ours

  • 00:44

    Shanks Mansell

    Hold Your Head Up

  • 00:51

    Dizzee Rascal

    Holiday

  • 00:49

    The Pigeon Detectives

    Romantic Type

Credits

Presenter Gregg Wallace
Presenter Cherry Healey
Presenter Ruth Goodman
Executive Producer Lucy Carter
Executive Producer Sanjay Singhal
Series Producer Michael Rees
Director Michael Rees
Production Company Voltage TV

Broadcasts

Learn more about the history of the factory and how it has evolved with an interactive from The Open University.

The fascinating stories behind the production of some of our favourite products.