Fantastic Facts

The project, called ‘Fantastic Facts’, tells these stories via a website, podcast, interpretation boards at stations and even cutting edge digital animation techniques.

DCRP shared these stories on social media to raise awareness of rail’s pivotal impact and to spark old memories, start new conversations and foster local pride. The more quirky, unusual and little known the story, the better.

Researching the stories
A public appeal and trawl of DCRP community contacts was done but the main results came from DCRP staff following their own leads and undertaking research online, in local libraries and through two visits to the National Archives.

Heritage, culture and tourism
The facts cover topics ranging from pop culture to historical icons to industrial heritage, showing the breadth of ways in which the railway has positively influenced local life. Highlights include:

• Buffalo Bill bringing his Wild West Show to Penzance by train in 1904, even finding time for tea at St Michael’s Mount
• How a Cornish scout group harvested bamboo to be shipped by train to feed London Zoo’s pandas
• The Beatles visiting Newton Abbot station in 1964 as part of filming A Hard Day’s Night
• How bird poo was once a significant traffic on a lost branch line near Exeter

Skills and education

DCRP was keen to get young people involved in the project and had already discovered that the Morrab Library in Penzance had a fantastic newspaper and photographic archive, including the original advert for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

DCRP arranged for St Mary’s Primary, in Penzance, to have a day exploring the archives, making history come to life.

The children also wrote and performed a song about other fantastic facts they discovered in the library, which features in the first Rail Radio podcast:

Celebrating railway people
The project highlighted the voices and stories of former railway staff. On the podcast, former railwayman Richard Westlake recounts how he had the task of walking Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s labrador along the platform at Paddington, and how he once had to calm Eric Sykes’ nerves as his vintage Rolls Royce was loaded on to the train:

The website also features an in-depth, never-before-seen interview, filmed by DCRP, with the late former railwayman John Snell, who describes his long railway career and details how the railway energised the Tamar Valley’s fruit and flower trade.

Innovations, technology and environment
DCRP was keen to tell old stories in new ways to reach wider audiences. Working with Plymouth-based graphics specialists Studio Wallop, they used the latest digital animation techniques to bring to life a real photograph of Buffalo Bill, making him walk and talk to regale social media users with his adventure on the GWR.

Results
The project made regional TV news with a 3-minute segment on BBC Spotlight, alongside coverage on BBC Radio Cornwall, BBC Radio Devon, the BBC News website and BBC social media channels.

It also featured in the official Railway 200 “Anniversary Weekend Extravaganza” newsletter, the only CRP project to appear.

On social media, DCRP’s videos and posts reached 127,000 people, receiving more than 1,500 likes. Comments included: “Very interesting!”, “Who would have believed it!” and “Something I didn’t know and I’ve lived here all my life.” The local community expanded on the facts with their own memories, extra details and even a forgotten poem.

The Fantastic Facts webpages received more than 5,000 views during the Railway 200 anniversary fortnight.

The project was funded by GWR’s Customer and Community Improvement Fund and CrossCountry Trains’ Community Engagement Fund.

Read the expanded version of this board – including video interview and podcast – on the Fantastic Facts website.