QI | Who Built Britain's Railways?

3 July: On this day in 1938, England set a world steam train speed record.

This clip is from QI Series E, Episode 1, 'Engineering' with Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon and Jimmy Carr.

[stuartkseels]

When billy says "The Railway Mouse" and Stephen says "correct", the look on Bill's face is a picture! "REALLY?!?!?!" Lol.

[Quarter]

Stephen Fry would be an excellent Dungeon Master.

[puirYorick]

Pity the sweet train didn't become a steady QI fixture.

[NyanSten]

The story about tzar's finger is for Moscow — St Petersburg railway (not Trans-Siberian Railway). It is only urban legend, the whole line was originally built almost straight but a slope near Verebye proved to be too steep for trains of that time and a climbing curve was built to overcome this problem. So it was not there in the original project in the first place.

[L.C.Sweeney]

I love to see Stephen's passion for the Navis. They - amongst many other feats of Irish muscle - make me proud to be Irish and I always feel connected to them when I pick up a shovel.

[importedmusic]

We still use the word "Navvy" in the UK, specifically in the coal mining trade when referring to excavator drivers. I never understood why we actually call them Navvy's until I watched this video! You learn something every day!

[stiimuli]

One of the funniest yet overlooked parts of this is when Jimmy makes a little horsey with his fingers about to rob the train of Rob's candy and then says "curses!" when he's foiled.
Maybe I'm weird but that was brilliant to me on several levels =)

[slook]

FYI, a Dagenham smile is what we know as a plumber's crack.

[UltanCowley]

70-80% of the actual railway navvies were in fact English and it always saddens me that their own people consistently fail to appreciate that. I say this as the author of The Men Who Built Britain: A History of the Irish Navvy (Dublin, 2001), which is the definitive history of Irish male migrant labour in Britain. The occupational term 'navvy' was dropped from official usage in 1960 - at which time Irish labour was concentrated in, and coming to dominate, the groundworks aspects of construction. BTW: The first British commercial canal of the Inland Navigation System was the Newry Canal, in Co. Down, opened in 17 45.

[TonyHavenMusic]

5 years to build London to Birmingham with pure man muscle, now we have machines we can barely get the plans done in under 10 😫

[ptroinks]

Hey! This is from the same episode as "They say about the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is"!

[India.H]

'Curses'? I think that's the politest expletive Jimmy's ever said on the show!

[NoWhereMan]

My great great grandfather was one. Though he built railway lines in Pakistan not Britain. I've been trying to find his diary, as I'm sure he has tons of interesting stories written down.

[nikolaosaugoustatos]

3:25 I don’t think that joke was heard properly because that’s a classic. Kudos Bill Bailey!!

[zeigbert]

The wisdom of the Rural Buddha definitely deserves a sweet.

[ShortMan_]

The bottom bit of a pyramid is called a frustum

[jvs]

Navvies weren't 'mostly Irish' in the books I've read. This from The Railway Archive:

Interestingly, it is often thought that the majority of navvies were Irish, but this is not the case. Large numbers of Irish men did travel to Britain and become navvies, as work was more plentiful and the jobs were invariably better paid, but these represent a minority of the hundreds of thousands of men required for the construction of the railways.

[carlreading]

The Birmingham to London railway was built in 5 years. How long have we been working on HS2?

[ahillmann]

0:47 Either there is a breeze in the studio, or Bill's hair is sentient and has the ability to move on its own.

[Necrobin]

"very good, very good" *gives Alan a treat*