PhD student's documentary on 200 years of rail to air on BBC Radio 4

The 30-minute audio piece airs celebrating the 200-year anniversary of passenger rail by using a mixture of soundscapes. The unique soundtrack is made up of interviews, narration, and railway sounds in place of musical instruments.

Listeners can expect to be taken on a journey which starts in the Durham coal mines and progresses through both time and distance before terminating its route in Stockton, following the same 26-mile route of the world’s first passenger train journey.

Joe said: “It’s an audio representation of the first ever passenger rail journey from start to finish.

“Trains started with steam and coal, and it progresses all the way up until modern day because it progresses in time as well as distance.”

Production began in early July when Joe started to collect audio recordings at modern train stations and across heritage lines.

It led to 250 hours of hard work over the course of a few months, with Joe putting in an extra hours in the last push for completion before the deadline.

As a co-producer, under Overtone Productions, Joe took on all the structuring, sound design, recording, composition, mixing, and mastering for the whole project.

This included working from archives from as far back as 1875, conducting interviews, and collaborating with historian and broadcaster Katrina Porteous who helped integrate poems and narration. Her family’s history in the coal mines became an integral part of Joe’s work along with her knowledge of the topic.

Joe’s work usually involves visual media, making music for games and animation, and audio-visual arts so it was a leap into the unknown to develop a radio documentary.

He added: “I’d never been a massive radio person before, so it was kind of just an accidental fall into it with this project.

“It’s like a big string of happy little accidents over the years that have led up to it. But it was very much a case of saying yes to things.”

He goes back to his BA Creative Music Technology degree, as a starting point for the events which led to this opportunity.

A masterclass from musician Jeremy Sasson, who focused the entire talk on the concept of saying yes to opportunities, inspired Joe to try it for himself.

“I think I took that a little bit too literally, to the point where I just say yes to everything even though I haven’t got the time!

“But it’s kind of just led to this amazing string of opportunities, which has been fantastic.”

The makings of the documentary came when the BBC were approached by Overturn about the 200-year anniversary and asked if they were aware or prepared for it.

With no coverage planned for the event, Joe was asked to write a pitch for the programme which, after a lot of back and forth, was approved by the BBC.

Fast forward to completing production and Joe’s documentary has already been recognised before airing, as it this week’s Radio Times Pick of The Week.

’How Trains Shrank Time and Space’ will air on BBC Radio 4 at 7.15pm on Sunday 21 September, and will then be rebroadcast at 9:30pm on Wednesday 24 September. After this, it will be available on BBC Sounds.