Great British Railway Journeys
Great British Railway Journeys is a TV show on BBC4. Documentary series in which Michael Portillo travels the country by train. The program has been available since 2024. A total of 161 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in December 2024.
Last episode
35:00
35:00Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo journeys from Darlington to Dunbar, following the route taken by George Stephenson's steam engine on its 1825 journey.
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25:00Michael Portillo journeys from Newark-on-Trent to Stockton-on-Tees, and a scandalous novel written in Thirsk leads him to a wildlife centre.
30:00Michael Portillo explores a Swiss garden in Bedfordshire, drives a 'locomobile', and discovers the Victorian origins of the fertiliser industry.
30:00Michael Portillo sets out on the first leg of a trip from London to Edinburgh aboard the Flying Scotsman, beginning at King's Cross as he heads for York.
Series 12
35:00
35:00Michael Portillo travels from Aberystwyth into the Cambrian Mountains at Devil's Bridge, and finishes in Newtown, Powys.
25:00Michael Portillo explores Snowdonia, the town of Porthmadog, and the village Portmeirion, crafted by Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis.
30:00Michael Portillo continues his railway tour of north Wales in the coastal city of Bangor, before turning south to Betws y Coed, the gateway to Snowdonia.
30:00Michael Portillo's 1930s Bradshaw's-inspired railway tour of north Wales takes him to Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Anglesey.
25:00Michael Portillo visits Crewe, a town steeped in railway history, to investigate the making of cinema classic The Night Mail during the 1930s.
25:00Michael Portillo is in Suffolk on the last leg of his tour of East Anglia, visiting the racecourse at Newmarket and the Roman Catholic shrine at Walsingham.
30:00Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green to learn about Henry Moore became one of the defining artists of British modernism.
30:00Michael Portillo's travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course, and visits the estate of author Barbara Cartland.
35:00Michael Portillo continues through East Anglia, where he discovers the Essex origins of the BBC and joins the Women's Land Army to pick damsons at Tiptree.
25:00Michael Portillo explores East Anglia between the wars, beginning at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, where archaeologists discovered a 27-metre-long Anglo-Saxon ship in 1939.
30:00Michael Portillo heads for Farnborough, Hampshire, famous today for its airshow and home to what was then the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
30:00Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the Home Counties in the historic town of Guildford. Eventually he crosses into Hampshire to reach Aldershot.
25:00Series 8, Episode 8 - Chapeltown to Doncaster
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Michael starts his journey in Chapeltown, Sheffield, following what was once known as the North Country Continental service, and finishing in Doncaster. 25:00Series 8, Episode 7 - Manchester Piccadilly to Silkstone Common
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Michael Portillo's journey to the North Sea continues and he investigates the Victorian scientist who invented modern atomic theory. 35:00Series 8, Episode 6 - Blackpool to Manchester Victoria
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Michael Portillo travels from Blackpool to Manchester unveiling a monument to railwaymen of the London and North Western Railway who died in the Great War. 25:00Series 8, Episode 5 - Longniddry to Edinburgh
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In Musselburgh, Michael Portillo gets a taste of life as a fishwife, before exploring Edinburgh where a popular 19th-century mode of transport is making a comeback.