QI | Who Built Britain's Railways? 

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

Stephen Fry would be an excellent Dungeon Master.

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

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.

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.

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!

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 =)

The wisdom of the Rural Buddha definitely deserves a sweet.

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

Positive reinforcement at its best.

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

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.

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 😫

The bottom bit of a pyramid is called a frustum

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

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.

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

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.

When you find the official channel of QI... live is nigh complete

The panel that made the greatest work!

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.

all i could think was "this is the episode where stephen lost it"

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

"Oh, it stopped in the right place, it can't be a virgin train then, can it?"

2:57 S W E E T

So Egyptians hired Irish workers! Now it all makes sense!

It was tough as hell micks that built the railroads here in the US also. I'd imagine it was even tougher considering they dealt with more extreme weather, wild life, indians, isolation, etc ....

The answer is, the Irish.

Days have changed in Britain, a round about in Basingstoke is taking whole year to make improvements, an extra lane. 😕

Didn't they say something about the acropolis where the Parthenon is in this episode? :p

So Navies built the first railway from London to Birmingham by hand in 5 Years. But they now recon it will take 30 years to build a High Speed Link from Manchester to London for a Link to the Chunnel. Don't you just love the Progress made in Engineering.

"Oh it stopped in the right place... it can't be a virgin train then" HAHAHA!!!

ohhhh this is the episode w/ parthenon🤩

We miss you Steven!

FYI this is the 'Acropolis' episode

Irish have always been hard workers where ever the went great testimony to them

0:13 ha ha hey its James 0:18 Oh my _God_ what did Stephen do to James's _face?!?_

That explains something to me. I'm Irish and as youngsters if we couldn't finish our dinner we were told to, "just eat your meat." No! It's not an euphemism.

Any one else reminded of Pob (or MAC from "Mac and me" if you're a Paul Rudd fan) when Jimmy purses his lips like that?

I thought the navvies worked on potatoes 🥔 & donuts 🍩 ! I was wrong on that one

I stole a train when i was 4 ... no ... really ... driver was nice enough to let the little boy into the cab and stupid enough to leave the cab for 30 seconds after showing the little boy how to drive a train ... i got about 50 feet but it still counts! ... him running etc ... i dont actually remember it but i`m told about it constantly ... someone else in my family needs to do a bank

I.K.Brunel GWR... Stephenson his Rocket won the Rainham trials! Not to forget Richard Trevithick pioneering Cornish man who was using steam engines in tin mines decided to put wheels on an engine!

I remember seeing Irish road workers into the early 80's still wearing a suit whilst digging up roads.

I thought the Czar was the ruler

I thought 'Irish navvies' was going to be the 'obvious but wrong' answer to this question.

The Irish were 30% of Navvies. 70% were British.

Oh, you should have given Jimmy one. You could tell he wanted it.

Did you know Spain intentionally built their railways on a wider gauge so France couldn't invade them by train.

I heard Navis and brain made me hear 'Hey Listen'

3:50 Jimmy think bout how he really like one of those sweets

The "half" pyramid would be halved vertically not horizontally.

The "Tsar's Finger" bypass wasn't made until 25 years after the Tsar's death.

SWEET!!!!!!

Stephen Fry is the fanciest cat. And it's adorable.

"dagenham smile" lol

The train is so cute

“Come ride the little train that is rolling down the tracks to the junction. ...”

SWEET!!

Apparently there were a lot of Yorkshiremen

Beer and meat is a great incentive to do many things.

Can’t wait until he asks a lad to show him his Chelsea smile

I've just noticed that toy train is a repainted Thomas model. It's not just an E2 model, Hornby never made E2 models that small, the proportions are all wrong for that. That is a "Thomas" proportioned model based on the television show rather than the actual E2s with extended side tanks. The key giveaway is how much shorter it is. Though I suppose it could have been a bachmann model, or custom made.

Is it just me or is the volume of these clips really low compared to other RU-vid videos?

“Curses.” 😂

Again the obvious answer is correct. No klaxon 😯 !

In Canada "navvies" refers to "coolies."

Jimmy's face at 3:21

Dont forget your shovel if you want to go to work. We want to go to heaven, but we're always digging holes.

Dream team.

Sweet!

I wonder what job would count as the closest equivalent of something like this today?

Irish construction worker diet has changed very little since the 1800s

The Irish built Britains railways.

If London-Birmingham is equivalent to 1.5 great pyramids, then what is the Trans Siberian railway equivalent to? 😮

Navvy is Gaelic for digging

Was it Trevithick's or Stevensons Fusiliers? After all it was McAlpines Fusiliers who built UK's roads. ;-)

For a moment there I thought Bill wasn't going to get his sweet.

the navi , are from the planet pandora , and they are blue and tall.

As usual they don't mention that the it was a Private enterprise, there was no state involvement or funding

Jimmy was mad dogging Alan Davies when he got a sweet.

Navvies had to be able to dig a trench three feet wide, three feet deep and thirty six feet long in a day

If you put a harness on an Irishman, you can get a lot of work done.

Dagenham smile.... *chuckle*

ThE rAiLwAy MoUsE

What did they do in their year of training?

I wonder what the Canadian Pacific Railway was the equivalent of building then?

"They lived on beer and meat, and they could outperform any other manual labour that farmworkers would be exhausted after a quarter of the day with that Navies could do". Hear that Vegans?

So how do you train a navie?

did jimmy get his sweet at the end? :O

Today’s society would definitely ask for 1.5 pyramids... and that makes me feel happy 😂

If the did that sweets train in a classroom everyone will pay attention.

Same people that built the canals?

Rob has grown some hair 🤫

@ No Where Mañ I suspect it wasn't called Pakistan though!

The Birmingham to London track which took 5 years to build was an astonishing feat; what was the U.S. transcontinental, or the trans Siberian railway?

Fry should know a pile of excavated mud does make a pyramid.

Hay listen! And that's how we got the the fairy in Zelda. Thanks......

the romans?

All I eat is meat and all I drink is beer. Why am I not strong like a navi?

Jimmy Carr's face hahahaha