Come on!
Meanwhile, I'd found the set of points where I could switch to the other track.
Yes. Now, this is more of a palaver than on the motorway,
but I am now in the overtaking lane.
Yes, I am.
Let's go and hunt down James May.
We're really moving now!
Seventy miles an hour! Yes!
That massive rear spoiler, providing the downforce we need.
My passengers are looking thrilled.
And now I would show May that speed is right, speed is good.
Speed works.
There he is.
James May is about to be splashed by the mighty wheel-spinning TGV12.
Clarkson?
God, how did he do that?
The sports train is invincible.
Ever since the dawn of the train,
it's been mired in this sea of turgid practicality.
Nobody's ever thought: "Let's make an exciting train."
And here I am, in just such a thing.
On Hammond and May's train, it's just one long, dreary trail of boredom.
Brace! Brace!
Some poo's come out!
Ladies and gentlemen, particularly of first class, with your OBEs and MBEs,
Richard Hammond, your steward, will be passing through shortly with hot meals.
Oh, wait a minute.
Since hunting was banned,
one sees the horses frolicking gaily in the fields enjoying...
Forgive me while I just back off and have a bit of a gloat.
If we look over here, we see traditional farming methods.
And I think that pretty much covers the lecture.
I'm just doing a lecture on the countryside.
Nothing to see here.
And that's it. So, now we'll be on our way.
Oh, dear.
Bye!
People of first class.
Once again, the editor of Railway Express Magazine
was heading back towards Leicester.
Although this time I had, at least, found a novel way of seeing where I was going.
Ignore the enormous locomotive behind me.
It's a glitch, really. Not my fault.
Our train was now certain of beating Jeremy's to near Loughborough.
This is just serene.
However, in the buffet car, things weren't going so well.
Ladies and gentlemen, please brace yourself.
The incompetent steward is about to pour tepid coffee into your crotch.
Christ's sake, James! Stop making [bleep] announcements!
That's my job! I'm the steward!
You drive! I steward!
It's my train and the driver makes the bleeding announcements.
That's the way it is.
I had finally found a passing point and was now back in the chase.
Really shifting now.
Really, really, really moving. No time to lose.
80 miles an hour.
Meanwhile...
La la la la la la! La la la la la la la!
Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis. It's my Tannoy.
Hello, chaps.
Can I offer you refreshments?
-Have you got a coffee, please? -No.
-Any chance of a Danish pastry, please? -No.
I'll slow it down by one mile an hour.
This isn't the fastest train in the world.
I'm sure Jeremy will claim his goes faster.
But ours carries more people. That's the point of a train.
It's mass transport.
What Jeremy's built, essentially, is a business jet,
but that's out of the reach of the vast majority of people.
-Anything else I can get you? Red wine? -No, no.
Oh, dear. It appears my colleagues have a bit of a problem.
-James. -What?
-Your train's on fire. -Is it?
-Yes, it is. -Right.
Well, there we are.
Once again, then, it looked like I would be the first to our destination.
Very nearly at the end now. And what an epic voyage this has been.
Leicester, well, nearly Leicester, to the outskirts of Loughborough.
A distance of nearly eight miles.
And the sports train... just about done it.
Easing it down now. Should imagine there'll be a fanfare.
The mayor of Loughborough is almost certainly going to be here to...
Oh, he isn't.
Nobody is.
Not to worry, though, because the great pioneers are often unappreciated at first.
Throughout this epic voyage,
I have referred to this as either the TGV12, or the sports train.
But I don't think that's right. I don't think that does it justice.
I think that the editor and the other man
will agree that what you are looking at here is the future.
And all we must do now is await
the arrival of my less-successful colleagues.
No, listen. Listen. If you ignore the fire,
and the fact we didn't get where we wanted to go,
it was incredibly noisy and the fact that all the passengers have run away...
Apart from that, it was a resounding success?
I think we can only judge it to be a success. It worked as a train.
We came up with something new and unique and brilliant.
-Well, I think as a concept... -Oh, hello.
It's quite nice. But the fact is...