Have you ever heard of The Biggest Little Railway in the World? It was

“a temporary 71 mile (114 km) 1.25 inches (32 mm) O-gauge model railway from Fort William to the City of Inverness, the two largest settlements in the Scottish Highlands. It has been described as a crackpot project to run a model train the length of the Great Glen Way by an army of madcap enthusiasts, geeks, and engineers in the best spirit of eccentric Britishness.”

56 volunteers built it over the course of 12 days and also drove the engine called Silver Lady along it. The track included a temporary bridge across the Caledonian Canal, a huge trestle bridge and a spiral loop near the end that enabled the train to climb five metres over a very short distance.

The model train achieved what the real railway didn’t: It ran from Fort Williams to Inverness.

There is a five-part Channel 4 TV series about this incredible project that you can watch in its entirety here:

Futility Closet: Thinking Big. (5 x 45min)

I watched it over the past few days and enjoyed it thoroughly even though I’m neither a train nor model train enthusiast.