The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway.
I watched this last night. It was on BBC2, at one time, the channel for "the more discerning viewer." Ten years ago I posted stuff on Urban Dictionary about the poor standard of contemporary TV, including the fact that some programmes should have the words, "For Dummies" added to the end of the title.... This was one.
A two-parter about the building of the new Elizabeth tube line.
Lots of blokes dashing about in "high viz" jackets and hard hats. Some of the footage of trains moving was accompanied by dramatic staccato music, so intense I was expecting Jason Bourne to appear at any moment.
We saw a lot of the work involved in erecting a glass screen at the edge of a platform, with sliding glass doors, which were to be opposite where the doors on the train would open, (assumimg the driver stopped in the right place). An "elf n' safety" essential consideration, for somewhere like Tottenham Court Road?
More drama, the delivery of a ten ton ventilation fan, that looked like a giant can of beans. This had to be removed from the back of a lorry and negotiated down a big hole and then pass through a large entrance to it's final position. The last bit they used air cushions, so that three blokes could move it by gently pushing it. The narrator, "Will it pass under the doorway lintel?!" Of course it will you dummy, these calculations are all made before they order the naffin' fan!
On to driver training, a pleasant young woman was undergoing training. She was alone in the cab and had to master the controls. There may have been some which were too complicated to be grasped by the average BBC 2 viewer. But neither did we see them, nor did she need them.
We saw a quiet straight line ahead with no distractions, no other trains, no pedestrians, no steering wheel or indicators to work, no talkative passenger next to her.
I'm sure my Kitchenaid toaster seems more complicated to work than this train.
Essentially, she just had to master one large knob for, on/off/forwards/backwards and a joystick, where pulling progressively backwards on it increased the speed, pushing forwards decreased the speed and stopped it. I guess if she looked, there'd be an "app" on her phone that could do it for her.
The two instructors outside the cab decided to throw her a curve, adding something dramatic to the situation....They turned the signal 100 yards ahead of her to red.
Our gallant trainee coped with situation, slowed the train to a halt, then applying the handbrake by turning the big knob to "off."
The two men came into the cab and congratulated her on mastering the situation. They suggested that she'd had a bit of a shock and might need time to recover, but she said she was OK. The only shock she may have experienced, I guess would have been to be told she had failed the test and wouldn't be earning the £60,000 a year we were told, the drivers are promised when they complete the training.
By the way, she was only in a simulator!
More scenes of furious building action, to beat the September 2018 deadline. A casual viewer would have been forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled across an episode of, "Time Team."
Unfortunately they decided they wouldn't quite make it, so they've put the completion date back... a bit....by a year!
I don't think I'll bother with part two.
