Fred Dibnah's Age of Steam — Season 1

The Early Pioneers

A visit to Cornwall illuminates the early history of the steam engine in Britain, which was developed to pump water from the tin mines.

Watch episode

The Transport Revolution

How the advent of steam power radically changed the way people travelled.

Watch episode

Driving the Wheels of Industry

The Lancastrian steeplejack’s continuing history of steam power charts the role of steam in Britain’s 18th- and 19th-century industrial expansion, and the use of huge stationary steam engines in mills, collieries and steel works until well into the 20th century.

Watch episode

Steam down the Road

The Lancastrian steeplejack’s continuing history of steam power looks at experiments in the use of steam for road transport that took place a full century before the invention of the car.

Watch episode

Steam on the Water

A look at how steam power revolutionised shipping, from the earliest paddle steamers with screw propellers to more modern vessels like the Royal Yacht Britannia.

Watch episode

Steam and the Modern Age

The Lancastrian steeplejack’s history of steam power concludes with a look at today’s powerful steam turbines that generate electricity and the preservation of our steam heritage in museums.

Watch episode