Original subtitles

For railroad networks all over the world, one environment is their biggest

nemesis of all.

Water. This is one of the major issues for us. We're right next to the sea

To build a railway here, it was a bit crazy, to be honest.

We have rough seas.

In the quest to conquer our water worlds, even the greatest railroad

are pushed to their limits. I can't imagine how they could build this line

by boat.

One of the most impossible railways.

But somehow they make the impossible possible.

From the world's wildest waters to its mightiest mountain, railroads have set

out to conquer them all.

What a feat of engineering.

Absolutely amazing.

Driven by daring engineers for whom no obstacle is too great.

I truly love this structure. It's magnificent.

The famous rolling hills of Devon in the southwest of England.

In the first half of the 19th century, engineers were faced with the seemingly

impossible challenge of building a railroad across this undulating county.

Today, engineer Steve Hawkins is getting a bird's eye view of what his

predecessors confronted.

It all looks very picturesque now.

Are we going right to left or?

Yeah.

The initial plans required long tunnels and sections where the trains would have

to be hauled up deep inclines with ropes.

But the project's engineer had an ambitious plan to avoid the hills

It is a very unique piece of railway.

It's unique that it runs right next to the sea for seven miles.

By hugging the coast, the South Devon Line could remain level.

It's the brainchild of the world's most legendary engineer, Isambard Kingdom

Brunel.

But taking on the water here with a railroad would prove to be one of

biggest challenges.

As today's engineers know all too well.

Brunel created that part of the railway 150 years ago plus with the sea spray

totally washing out and going over the train.

This is one of the most unforgiving stretches of coastline in England.

In 2014, it took just one of many pounding.

Powerful waves destroyed the rail line at Dawlish, and landslides blocked the

track.

It's the main infrastructure of railway into southern Devon and into all of

Cornwall.

That's for freight traffic and also passenger traffic. So it is key and

imperative that we keep that traffic running daily for our customers.

Although seawalls, tunnels and rock armor have been used to protect his

more than 150 years later, it's a constant battle for engineers to keep

impossible railroad running.

Based on recent inspections, we've noticed that there's some degradation of

netting system.

So what we'd like you to do today is just check for any componentry failure,

make sure that it's still fit for purpose.

It's down to 21st century engineers to keep Brunel's 19th century dream alive.

There are six different types of mesh systems or structures in place to stop

landlifts landing on the track and derailing trains.

The wire netting combined with barriers and motion detectors form an engineering

solution that means Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Victorian vision still plays a

vital role in Britain's modern rail network.

But further down the coast, the emphasis is on running another remarkable

section of Brunel's line in a way that he may have found more familiar.

Having conquered the water for his South Devon main line, Brunel tried the same

again with an ambitious branch line.

The Dartmouth Steam Railroad was designed in 1857.

and now runs from Seaside Payton to Kingsware in the historic natural

Dartmouth.

Today, it's run as a heritage line.

It's quite an art to controlling a steam engine.

Preserving another section of Brunel's impossible railroad.

This is one of the major issues for us, hugging coastline as we do.

As you can see, we're right next to the sea here.

The cliff face is, what, 15 feet away?

So this has the ravages of the winter.

Weather conditions do have an effect on driving techniques.

When designing the route, Brunel had an idea to at least make life easier for

himself by the Dart estuary.

Originally, Brunel was going to bring the railway across here, this is at

Greenway, and go down the river, and you can see there's an inlet, that's

actually Old Mill Creek, a varduck there, and then where you can see in the

distance, a naval ship, that would have then taken the track into Dartmouth.

But Brunel's plans were thwarted when he wasn't allowed to bridge the river.

resulting in one of the railroad world's most bizarre honors.

Brunel actually designed and built the station down at Dartmouth, and it's

actually in the Guinness Book of Records because it's the only station that's

never had a train call upon it, because in fact they built that before they got

the permission for the line.

Consequently, there was a full waiting room ticket office actually on the

Dartmouth side.

Instead, he was forced to come down this side.

Brunel would have to tame the area's natural obstacles.

First, digging through the hills with an almost 1 ,500 -foot -long tunnel.

And then, building an epic stone viaduct of the same length over the valley.

We consider ourselves very lucky on this railway.

We do have some rather marvelous scenery.

An engineering challenge is to get the materials to site to build that viaduct

is quite phenomenal.

It really is in the back of nowhere.

So, yeah, a huge amount of work went in just to build that one viaduct.

One of Brunel's biggest challenges is almost invisible.

Before the railway came, this whole area around Goodrington would have been a

salt marsh.

Goodrington Beach, as we see today, is not there.

This whole area leading about half a mile up inland was a complete salt

The deep marsh would swallow up any tracks or trains laid across it.

They had to build an embankment.

Fortunately, there was a huge amount of spoil available, but as they were

putting it in to make this embankment, it was just disappearing down into the

salt marsh.

Brunel's solution was to run drainage pipes below the marsh.

Underneath this whole valley, there is still Brunel's original pipe work,

draining the valley as it has since 1860.

And as a welcome result, the works created one of the region's most popular

beaches.

So, Mr. Brunel, congratulations.

The line became fully operational in 1864, and nearly 160 years later,

despite the conditions, Brunel's perhaps most picturesque engineering

achievement is still going strong.

It is stunningly beautiful.

I'm very biased, but when you go from the coast into the inland river of the

River Dart, which is completely unspoiled, it is one of the most

places.

I like the fact that we're basically living history.

Steam engines have been around for 150, 160 odd years.

We're keeping history alive.

But elsewhere in England, Brunel faced one final railroad engineering challenge

that would result in one of his most innovative masterpieces.

Brilliant structure.

On the southwest coast of Britain, Isambard Brunel's engineering ingenuity

conquered much of this impossible water world.

But one major obstacle still stood in his way.

If he was to take his railroad into England's most westerly county of

he would have to cross the River Tamar.

Engineer Peter Cook has worked at the site of Brunel's proposed bridge for the

past five years.

Brunel's job, unchallenged.

was to get the Great Western Railway from Devon over the Tamar actually to

Cornwall.

But not only is the Tamar a wide and deep waterway, it was and still is

a vital thoroughfare for the Royal Navy's Plymouth -based fleet.

They couldn't put numerous piers across the river because that would inhibit

access for the Navy at the time, as they insisted that they needed a hundred

-foot clearance for their tallest ship to pass under the structure.

Now, at the time, technology weren't available to generate, as we know, a

traditional suspension bridge due to the anchorages that would be required. The

technology just wasn't there.

So his solution was to build this.

Superb. I've worked on this structure for over five years. I know every nut

bolt on it.

It looks wonderful.

Completed in 1859, the Royal Albert Bridge was Isambard Kingdom Brunel's

great achievement.

A single midstream pier supports two spans of 450 feet each.

Both crowned with giant wrought iron tubular arches.

It's a design unique to the world.

If you can imagine, each span were built individually.

The Devon span were built on the Devon shoreline, the Cornwall span were built

on the Cornish shoreline, and then floated in position on barges.

You can imagine in the 1850s, there's no diesel engines as such, all ropes,

steam power.

What a feat of engineering.

It's the best bridge in the world.

And it contains very clever and innovative design features to get over

challenges that the estuary and the Navy presented.

In fact, it has been described as three bridge designs in one, none of which

would work without the others.

With a traditional suspension bridge, the load from the bridge deck is

transferred through the chains and vertically down the piers into the

below.

One of the reasons why Royal Albert Bridge was never a traditional

bridge, in 1850s, we didn't have the technologies to insert suitable ground

anchors to form a traditional suspension bridge.

So therefore, it's left with a very unstable structure, as you can see.

So if you can imagine load imposed onto the deck, the piers would just bend.

Catastrophe.

So to counteract that, Mr Brunel, in his wisdom,

inserted a boat at the top.

Now this does increase stability.

The piers are now much more solid, although the lateral movement is still

same, which is unsuitable for passage of trains.

So to counteract that, Mr Brunel inserted on the Royal Albert Bridge

hangers connecting the top truss to the lower sections of the bridge.

Already the structure's stiffening up.

Significantly. Bear in mind all this is happening in 1850, which is the

marvellous feat of engineering, to say the least.

It'll be a major project in today's times.

On the Royal Albert Bridge itself, there's 11 of these hangers and each

span.

You can imagine a little train comes along.

The load imposed by that is distributed by the bowstring truss along this bow

and then down each pier.

enabling safe passenger trains for the last 150 years.

Brilliant structure, unique.

Though he was almost on his deathbed, Brunel insisted on crossing his final

masterpiece himself.

In May of 1859, he lay on a specially designed open wagon as it carried him

across the bridge.

He died just four months later.

I've worked on the bridge for five years, but funnily enough, this is the

time I've ever been on a train across the structure.

Quite exciting, really.

150 years later, it is still achieving the impossible.

Isambard Kingdom, Brunel, arguably it's the finest structure ever built.

I love this bridge.

Brilliant.

The best structure in the world.

Uni.

But other railroads overcome the challenges of water by using the power

water itself.

This is the heart of this system.

Miracle! That's amazing.

Daring engineers are building their railroads across challenging waterways.

But there are some water railroads that defy expectation.

Expert Krzysztof Kowalczyk is in remote northern Poland, where in the mid

-1800s, engineers decided to build a series of canals to join the seaport of

Elblog with the rich timber region of Ostruda.

Since 16th century, trees from this area were very expensive, because there was

the best raw material for the mass to the ships.

But standing in the way was a six -mile uphill stretch, a total rise of

330 feet.

On this distance, there were 32 logs.

Logs take too much water, and there were too many logs.

It was down to Prussian engineer Georg Jakob Stenke to find an answer to this

seemingly impossible problem.

And today, 150 years later, Skipper Bartek is about to face the obstacle

stood in his way and Stenke's extraordinary solution.

This is not for any kind of train.

This is for boats, for ships.

It's only one working in the world.

System like this.

Georg Stenke created a railroad capable of lifting boats out of the water and

carrying them up and down hills.

There are two parallel sets of track, each with a wagon capable of holding a

-foot -long vessel.

The two carriages are connected by a looped steel cable.

This cable, as you can see, has to be very strong to pull a carriage with a

which weighs about 50 tons.

It's a lot.

This amazing solution to connect these canals, there was just slipway.

Slipway like this. With dry hill, there is one canal, another one canal is about

20 meters lower, and that was the great solution.

Five of these boat railroads fit along the six -mile journey, lifting the boats

in a series of steps to the summit.

When the ship coming on the carriage and connects to the carriage, the man from

the ship is coming and ring the bell.

The operator knows that he is ready.

When he's ready and everything is okay, operator giving the signal with the bell

to the operator in the machine place.

And it's no ordinary machine.

That's the water wheel, that's the engine, that's giving the power for all

system, for pulling the 50 -ton ship 20 meters up to the next canal.

Stenka's railroad harnessed the massive potential energy of the water itself.

You can feel the vibration, how it's working.

It's amazing, this building still exists.

It's not destroyed by this vibration.

You see, in one of this wing is capacity about one ton of water.

So in one moment, three are full.

So three ton of water is turning this wheel.

Wheel is about eight meter dimension.

It's more than four meters wide.

You never saw a bigger water wheel than this.

The wheel is used to wind the massive lifting cable.

Miracle! That's amazing!

Each wagon is counterbalanced by another, traveling simultaneously in the

direction.

This ingenious system can transport skipper Bartek and his boat over each of

five inclines in only 30 minutes.

From its opening in 1860, the incline lift system transformed the region.

It was now five times quicker to transport timber to the coast, and the

Canal became one of the longest trade routes in Poland.

As the road network grew, however, it fell out of favor until one man

intervened.

He named Adolf Tesla.

He found the idea to bring the tourists on the ships.

And he rebuilt one ship for tourists and started to transport tourists on

canals. And that was a very good idea.

Today, tens of thousands of tourists every year ride Georg Stenke's

boat railroad.

Inżynier Georg Jakob Stenke, thanks to him, we have this original.

It's absolutely amazing because it's one in the world, and it's still working.

But there are some water environments where few rail engineers dare to tread.

Crucially, we are close to big fault line, so aspects are common.

Calling for even more impossible railroads.

Istanbul, Turkey.

This ancient metropolis lies in both Asia and Europe.

But it's split in half by the mighty Bosphorus Strait.

For the city's 15 million inhabitants, this vast waterway poses a problem.

Crossing between the two parts of this city has always been a problem.

The bridges.

Jet can't cope with the volume of the traffic, so it's always congested.

A rail tunnel to connect the city and ease the traffic has long been a dream.

But as engineer Atsushi Nishikuri knows, building under this stretch of water is

about as challenging as it gets.

The water here is very deep, 61 meters.

There's strong currents in both directions.

There is a constant flow of ships to deal with.

But there's one problem that makes this underwater railroad challenge a

seemingly impossible one.

Crucially, we are close to big fault line, so aspects are common.

Boring a tunnel in a seismic zone would be out of the question.

Added to that, the deep, fast -flowing water meant there was only one solution.

We knew we had to use an immersed tube tunnel here.

It's the only method that can cope with both deep water and earthquake

conditions.

The Marmarai tunnel would need to be the deepest immersed tube tunnel in the

world.

An almost one mile long series of pre -made concrete and steel tubes running

under the Bosphorus Strait sunk to depths never before attempted.

This method is normally used only in up to 60 meters of water.

And we were trying to go to 61 meters.

So we were pushing deeper than anybody had gone before.

Each tunnel section is floated into position, then sunk, and then connected

the others.

A clever solution for the construction, but when finished in 2013, this sub

-aqua railroad would still be in constant danger from earthquake.

An earthquake could cause a major disaster.

Any small spirit in the tunnel could cause a massive flood.

That would totally destroy it.

Iset Uxal must constantly monitor a series of cutting -edge engineering

solutions incorporated to keep the railroad safe.

We have got lots of sensors all through the tube tunnel section.

And that computer gives a decision whether to continue the operation or

the passengers and stuff go out of the tunnel.

But should an earthquake hit, the tunnel is well prepared.

Now we have got gaskets in between each tube sections.

In fact, this is one of those points.

And with those gaskets, our tube section is flexible for earthquakes in

Istanbul.

Each of the 11 tube sections is connected on the seabed with a steel and

gasket. If an earthquake strikes... The tunnel can flex and bend without

breaking.

This flexible tunnel is crucial to the project's success.

Should the worst happen, however, high -powered pumps kick into action.

And there's one final line of defense.

The marmorized mighty floodgates.

Totally, we have got four floodgates.

Through daring engineering, the team in Istanbul have created an earthquake

-defying underwater railroad.

enabling travel across the city and beyond.

Engineers have taken railroad solutions to new depths.

But bridging some troubled waters is a seemingly impossible task.

The Palk Strait, part of the mighty Indian Ocean that runs between southern

India and Sri Lanka.

93 miles across at its widest point, it's peppered with tiny islands.

And connecting to one of those islands is the iconic Pamban Rail Bridge.

This was India's first sea bridge, and it's still the queen of Indian bridges.

Opened in 1914, this 1 .2 -mile cantilever crossing connects Mandapam on

Indian mainland with the island of Pamban.

The Pamban Bridge is this immense structure that really helped ease the

between India and Sri Lanka, which until then had been a grueling journey by

boat.

Not only is Pamban a stepping stone to Sri Lanka, it's home to a prominent

temple. So creating a permanent link was crucial, although far from easy.

The Pambam Bridge is a real feat of engineering.

First of all, it had to cover a huge distance of over two kilometers.

Then it was built over the sea, and the sea can be rough, unpredictable, and

it's an incredibly corrosive environment.

Then add to that the fact that it's actually a windy environment which is

to cyclones.

In 1911, it was Mr. J .T. Lewis, chief engineer of the Southern India Railway,

who took the job.

With a seabed of unstable reefs, he opted for a light multi -span steel

All 45 deck girders were delivered pre -made and floated into position, then

lifted onto the masonry piers.

And to avoid blocking the channel to shipping, he installed an ingenious lift

bridge.

So the lift bridge, which is also called the Scherzer Bridge, is a double -leaf

bascule bridge. And if you imagine, if you're sitting on a rocking horse and

lean backwards, then the front of the horse actually lifts up. And it's the

principle that's applied to lifting up these bits of the bridge.

Each bridge leaf is wound open with a system of counterweights.

As it's wound, it rolls back on its curved base.

letting the weights take over, opening the bridge to let ships pass.

Its innovative design means it's very easy to operate.

This enormous bridge can be wound open by hand.

I find it completely fascinating that over a hundred years later, they still

the same methodology and it still works.

To build any bridge in this environment would have been incredibly difficult,

but to have built a lift bridge was such a monumental achievement.

Today, the rail bridge remains the second longest sea bridge in India,

monsoons, cyclones, and the ravages of the sea.

The fact that the Pamban Bridge has lasted for so long is a testament to two

incredible facts.

The first is that it was built in a really robust way, and the second that

been really well looked after.

But there are some water worlds that are not for the faint -hearted.

I think this is one of the most challenging and impossible railways.

It's like amazing.

Creating railroad engineering that's second to none.

Cinque Terre on the Italian Riviera.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site is made up of five ancient villages, clinging to

the near vertical cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

In Italian, Cinque is five, and then Terre is land.

We have the villages of Montorosto, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, which is

behind me here, and Rio Maggiore.

The villages are about 12 kilometers apart.

It doesn't sound like a lot of space between them, but if you're trying to

it, it's incredibly steep.

For centuries, these communities were cut off from the rest of the world. And

even today, their remoteness is still being felt.

At the end of the 19th century here, it would have been very difficult to travel

between the villages because the only way to do it was on foot or by boat,

is always contingent on weather conditions and sea conditions.

It wasn't uncommon for people to marry amongst the village. In fact, when I

moved here and married my husband, who's from one of the villages, an elderly

woman told me, oh, you're bringing fresh blood.

In the late 19th century, daring engineers wanted to connect the villages

train.

But the rugged Ligurian coastline is no easy place to create a rail line.

Just because it's always an unpredictable element of nature.

The terrain here is incredibly rugged.

We don't have rolling hills.

We have crumbling cliffs.

Everything here is just a little bit more difficult than other places in the

world.

In 1874, a team of courageous engineers completed the seemingly impossible.

The Cinque Terre Railway.

A 27 -mile line carved through the cliff.

which would finally connect all five villages.

To build a railway here in the Cinque Terre, it was very courageous and a bit

crazy, to be honest.

We have extremes.

We have the cliffs. We have erosion.

We have rough seas.

To protect the new rail line from the storm -scoured cliff base and the

unpredictable waters, there was only one solution.

The engineers, while they were constructing the line, Tried to hug the

but they had to burrow tunnels through.

This 27 -mile rail line includes no less than 51 tunnels, making a grand total

of 17 miles, all drilled and blasted by hand.

This ambitious tunneled construction means the railroad has stood the test of

time. And today, the job of looking after it falls to Luca D 'Angelo and his

team.

We are on the top of Monte Rosso. We are working in several places here. Between

Monte Rosso and Bernatta, we are going to build some drainage works to protect

our tunnels from the water coming down from the mountains.

And we are going to deliver these steel bars.

They are quite happy.

You can see it.

And you cannot really bring these by hand or by the path.

To deliver heavy materials to clifftop work sites, engineers become more like

action heroes.

Yeah, we have helicopters that help us a lot now during our work.

And I can't imagine how they could build this line just by boat and carrying

materials. It was something crazy, I think.

I think it's amazing to see also this piece of railways.

Even if the most part of it is in tunnels, when you see it open, it's like

amazing.

This is an artificial tunnel, but made beginning of the construction of the

line. You can see the windows here from which train passes through.

They had to build almost all the railways in tunnels to prevent the risk

falling down from the slope.

The few areas still open to the elements are also slowly being covered by the

team.

As you can see, we are on a bridge.

And to protect our infrastructure between the two tunnels, we had to build

steel structure made by columns and beams and then concrete slabs.

You can see here rocks falling down, but not only rocks, also floating from the

top of the mountain.

But the tunnels themselves are still prone to the ravages of nature.

And in 2011, one water event completely shut down the line.

Mud filled up to the first floor of the building. It looked like a war zone.

On the Italian Riviera, 17 miles of tunnels are needed to cut through the

and safeguard the Cinque Terre railway line.

Some have been closed and replaced, and the rest are protected by a complex

drainage system to deflect seawater and overflow from the rivers above.

But there are some big water events for which no one can prepare.

On October 25, 2011, a terrible flood struck here in Vernazza.

It was a place that you wouldn't recognize today.

Oh, my God.

Mud filled up to the first floor of the building.

There were locals that lost their lives.

The village was absolutely devastated. It looked like a war zone.

The railway station in Vernazza was completely covered with rubble. The

that connects the villages was covered with rubble. The only way to reach the

village during that time was either by air or by boat.

Torrential rain had flooded the rivers above, washing debris from vineyard

terraces into the drainage channels.

As the channels became blocked, both town and railroad were flooded.

Luca and his intrepid team are making sure this never happens again.

We are on the top of the railway tunnel.

We are going to build a protective structure because if you can see here,

have like a channel that just undergoes the railway tunnel.

In 2011, when there was a huge flooding, Mass rock falling down just closed

this channel.

And the flooding was going inside the tunnel.

And the line was out of order for like one week. And so what are we doing now

going to build a structure to protect our infrastructure and to be sure that

will not happen again anymore.

This work is essential for sure. But we are now going to carry out a huge number

of works like this.

obviously with use of helicopter.

As you can see, it's the only way to bring material here.

Today, the Cinque Terre Railway is used by locals and tourists alike and remains

the best way to explore this spectacular corner of the world.

Right now, we are in one of the 51 tunnels along the line.

Every once in a while, there'll be a glimpse of the seaside, maybe the

We're right on the water's edge.

I remember the very first time riding on the Cinque Terre train and being in a

tunnel and then having a flash of paradise.

It really is beautiful.

And Luca continues to support the work of the railroad engineers who dared to

build it in the first place.

They had to face a lot of problems.

Engineering, designing, but also the construction.

They did a great job in the past.

I think it will last forever.

Since the dawn of the railroad, water has proved to be their fiercest

Calling for daring solutions.

Thank God they did it because we have a beautiful line to enjoy today.

Taking engineering to a new level.

The engineers were the best in the world at that period.

To create impossible railroads.

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