craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

This is an article in my ongoing series about our trip through the British Isles. Earlier articles include the Introduction,Stonehenge, Oxford, Driving to Wales, Anglesey, Crossing the Irish Sea, Dublin, Northern Ireland, and Ferry to Scotland.

As I mentioned at the end of the last article, our decision to stay in Falkirk for three nights was a practical one. Originally that was the amount of time to be dedicated to Edinburgh. It happened, though, that our schedule coincided with the Edinburgh Festival, which I wanted to keep my distance from. (I'll explain more about that when I get to writing about Edinburgh, but I should say right away that my fears turned out to be ill-founded, and even with a stroller the Edinburgh Festival is worth going to! But I didn't know that then.)

So why Falkirk? It has a number of nearby attractions in its own right, and is only about an hour from Edinburgh. So by staying there we could see a lesser-known area of Scotland, some interesting sights, and still be able to easily make our way to the Royal City. It turned out to have been a great idea.

Falkirk Wheel

So on Saturday we elected to start the day with a visit to the Falkirk wheel, which I cannot write enough about to do it proper justice. Basically it is a showcase of Scottish engineering, and serves to replace eleven old canal locks with what one could describe as a rotating elevator for boats. The pictures show this somewhat, but we ultimately decided to go ahead and buy tickets to go up and down the wheel in a boat, and I highly recommend doing this. While the wheel turns, a number of interesting points about its operation are explained, and this really does enhance one's appreciation of the wheel—that's why I could go on for pages about it if I let myself. Also, the boat captain was a very lively and interesting person to listen to, and hearing a Scotsman speak proudly about the wheel and the canal system in Scotland added a lot of local flavour to the stop as well.

One of the interesting points I will mention, though, because it ties into my own interests in Classical Antiquity. When in the eighteenth century British engineers dug a canal across the island of Great Britain, naturally to do this they chose the narrowest possible route, since digging a canal is a fantastically expensive undertaking. What I found fascinating is that the narrowest line across the island of Great Britain, from the North Sea to the Irish Sea, happened to already have been built upon—by the Roman Empire. The Antonine Wall, built in AD 142, runs more or less along the same route as the canals of central Scotland (forcing the canal routes to be dug alongside the wall, where remnants remain). That the Romans had such advanced surveying and engineering ability to be able to do this so perfectly, in AD 142, is pretty astounding. I'll be saying more about the marvels of Roman Engineering when we get to Hadrian's wall, too.

The boat ride took us up the wall and through a tunnel that goes under the Antonine Wall before taking us back down. All in all it was, while touristy, a very fun visit (and not too crowded) and everyone enjoyed it, so I recommend it. After the Wheel we found some lunch, and then headed out to Bo'ness for our afternoon activity, a ride on the Bo'ness railroad.

Bo'ness & Kinneil Railway

This was just amazing. If you have an appreciation of railroads, and what goes into running them—even the amount of effort that goes into getting a small N-scale layout model railroad up and running—then you will likely be flabbergasted by how much British railway enthusiasts have been able to do. And Bo'ness is not even the only example: in planning our trip there were multiple similar sites across Britain that we might have gone to, but this was the best fit for our itinerary, and looked like one of the better ones.

So what am I talking about? Rail fans have actually gotten together and actually restored and operate a historic steam railroad. The amount of work involved to do this is astounding: one usually hears about clubs getting together just to get a large model railroad layout, but here they have the whole thing: locomotives, cars, stations, track... it is amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that there are actually quite a few restored railways like this in Great Britain—although I have to believe that the Bo'ness must be one of the best.

So, we got to treat ourselves to a leisurely ride up the Firth of Forth in a steam-drawn vintage railcar. It was pretty cool (especially for a train lover like me), and it was great to see such an amazing amateur railroad—and so many families there, drawn by their children who were going nuts to see "Thomas the Tank Engine". (They actually do have Thomas-themed rides at certain points in the year; this wasn't one of those, but that didn't deter the children there from believing that our steam engine was actually Thomas.) It was a fun ride, and truly steam-powered (unlike some tourist railways who operate with a steam locomotive up front "for show" and a diesel hidden in the back "for go"). I thought it was a great experience, and it was historically enlightening to experience travel this way—certainly nothing like a TGV for speed, but in the context of the industrial revolution, the coming of the railroads had an even greater impact on the world. So the actual experience of riding a steam-powered train was an interesting thing to try.

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