Great British Railway Journeys S15 complete (1080p, soft English subtitles)

All aboard! Armed with his trusty Bradshaw's guide, Michael Portillo explores the UK the railways made. Uncover hidden gems and fascinating communities from across the nation.

E01 Denham to Swindon
Beginning at London Marylebone, the last great Victorian railway terminus to be built in the capital, Michael Portillo embarks on a postwar exploration of Britain’s southern counties. He travels to Denham in Buckinghamshire, where engineers are constructing a striking new viaduct, High Wycombe, a historic centre of furniture-making thanks to its abundant of beechwood forest, and Oxford, where he discovers the postwar origins of the charity shop. In the Wiltshire countryside, Michael meets the head of the Soil Association and some of her saddleback piglets to hear how the organic movement was founded after the Second World War in reaction to the intensification of farming.

E02 Chippenham to Yeovil
Michael Portillo joins Navy Wings pilots for a spectacular close formation flight in the skies over Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton. He also visits the magnificent Elizabethan mansion of Longleat, seat of the Marquesses of Bath, to find out about the estate’s remarkable survival after the Second World War. At Chippenham in Wiltshire, Michael pays a call on a signalling manufacturer that has been at the heart of British railway projects for decades and has a go on the centre’s simulator, driving the Elizabeth Line train to Paddington.

E03  Swanage to Portchester
Contains Discriminatory Language
Michael Portillo reaches England’s south coast to continue his exploration of postwar Britain. He begins in Dorset on the Swanage Railway, riding a glorious 1940s steam locomotive on the trail of one of Britain’s most popular children’s authors, Enid Blyton. In Poole, Michael discovers an icon of the Swinging Sixties – the lava lamp, invented in the town by an eccentric accountant. At Romsey, Michael heads to the magnificent Broadlands Estate, once home of Louis Mountbatten, first Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Michael’s last stop on this leg of the journey is Portchester, on the northern edge of Portsmouth Harbour, where he visits a factory manufacturing a marine craft pioneered in the 1950s – the hovercraft.

E04 Havant to Guildford
Michael Portillo reaches Havant, a town that rapidly expanded after the Second World War and attracted new manufacturing, including a factory making a new and exciting toy – Scalextric. Further north, at Rowlands Castle, Michael visits Britain’s oldest commercial vineyard, Hambledon, established in 1952. Crossing the county border into Surrey, Michael heads to Haslemere, the surprise birthplace of a musical phenomenon – the plastic recorder. And the last stop on this leg of Michael’s journey is Guildford, where he discovers a cutting-edge facility at the forefront of the British space industry.

E05  Wokingham to Heathrow
Michael begins the final leg of his journey at the Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, where they have been keeping Britain’s roads safe for 90 years. From Reading, Michael boards a new Elizabeth Line train to Southall, where he visits the largest gurdwara outside India.

Continuing on the Elizabeth Line to Heathrow Airport, Michael hears how it began as a private aerodrome. He is given special access to an enormous concrete box beneath Terminal 5, takes an eerie walk around the mothballed Terminal 1 building and ends his tour atop the iconic 87.5 metre control tower.
E06 Loch Lomond to Kelvinbridge
Michael Portillo boards the West Highland Line to begin a railway journey across Scotland’s central belt, from the Arrochar Alps to the Loch of the Lowes.
At the head of Loch Long, Michael meets a legendary octogenarian munro-bagger. In Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond, he joins passionate volunteers working to restore an iconic 1950s paddle steamer. In Glasgow, Michael rides the 'Clockwork Orange', the third oldest underground rail system in the world, to Govan and the shipyards of the River Clyde. And at Kelvinbridge, Michael hears how the chicken tikka masala was created for the Glaswegian palate by an immigrant chef from Lahore.

E07 Glasgow to Cumbernauld
At the home of Scottish football, Glasgow’s Hampden Park stadium, Michael admires the oldest football trophy in the world and hears how the 'passing game' was born there. From Scotland’s busiest railway station, the splendid Glasgow Central, Michael heads to the M8 motorway to see 16 lanes of traffic slicing through the city centre. At the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Michael hears how, after the Second World War, artist Joan Eardley set up a studio amid the tenements of Townhead and painted children from Glasgow’s slums. Michael finishes this leg of the journey in the planned, modernist new town of Cumbernauld, where he hears about the utopian ideals that shaped its design and architecture.

E08 Shawlands to Livingston
Michael Portillo continues his postwar Scottish railway adventure, this time from Glasgow to the capital, Edinburgh. At Pollok Country Park in Glasgow, Michael joins a women’s running club, the Bellahouston Harriers, for a warm-up session. In parkland above the pits en route to Cuningar Loop, he finds Glasgow’s geoenergy observatory, where the British Geological Society is researching how mine water heated naturally underground can be harnessed to save energy.
At Livingston North, Michael investigates a puzzling incident in 1979 in Dechmont Woods. And at Edinburgh’s famous 12th-century castle, he discovers the origins of a spectacle that has attracted tourists from far and wide since 1950, the Edinburgh Tattoo.


E09 Edinburgh to Queensferry
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey. On the outskirts of Edinburgh, at a recording studio in South Gyle, Michael is transported back to the wild world of 1970s pop with Bay City Rollers guitarist Stuart 'Woody' Wood. Michael leaves Edinburgh and takes the train north to Dalmeny for Queensferry, on the banks of the Firth of Forth. At the Progress Rail foundry, he marvels at the traditional skills still required to produce complex sets of rails for modern tracks in Britain and across the world. On the south bank of the Firth of Forth, Michael recalls the construction during the 1950s and 1960s of the Forth Road Bridge, which he saw as a child from the train window while crossing the rail bridge.

E10 Dundee to Loch of the Lowes
Michael’s rail journey through postwar Scotland takes him over the River Tay to Dundee on the trail of Joseph McKenzie, the father of modern Scottish photography. In Perth, Michael meets a singer-songwriter and veteran of the early Scottish folk scene. At Perth's Wellshill Cemetery, Michael discovers the graves of 355 of the thousands of Polish soldiers, sailors, and airmen who fought for the Allies from British bases. Alighting at Dunkeld, Michael makes for the Loch of the Lowes to spot a magnificent pair of breeding ospreys who nest in the 320-acre nature reserve.

E11 Liverpool to Uttoxeter
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, arriving in the city where the 60s burst into life to find the strikingly contemporary concrete and glass Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, inaugurated in 1967. In the Georgian Hope Street Quarter, Michael visits the former home of Adrian Henri, a prolific artist and poet who was at the heart of the Mersey scene. At Jodrell Bank, Michael recalls the excitement of postwar space exploration and hears how physicist Sir Bernard Lovell’s revolutionary research into meteors led to the construction of one of the biggest radio telescopes in the world. At Uttoxeter, Michael discovers how, in 1945, a young engineer made a trailer out of wartime surplus material, including wheels and tyres from American army jeeps and scrap steel from old air-raid shelters.

E12 Derby to Nottingham
Michael Portillo reaches the jet age in the Derby suburb of Peartree, where he tours the engineering colossus Rolls-Royce. In Derby city centre, Michael is on the trail of little-known modernist sculptor Ronald Pope, admiring two of his works and discovering how Pope began his working life as an engineer at Rolls-Royce. The chance to catapult a model train along a 150-metre-long track into a purpose-built wind tunnel takes Michael to Derby's Railway Technical Centre, founded in 1967 and once the largest railway research complex in the world. Michael’s last stop is Nottingham, where he finds one of the oldest bicycle companies in the world, Raleigh, and discovers how a bold, new idea became a craze.

E13 Lincoln to York
Michael Portillo’s postwar journey from Merseyside to Teesside resumes at Brayford Pool in Lincoln, where England’s oldest canal, the Fossdyke, meets the city of Lincoln. The larger-than-life figure of one of Britain’s most celebrated poets, Philip Larkin, rushing towards the platform at Hull Paragon Station leads Michael to investigate his life and work. And alongside the Humber estuary, Michael recalls the politics behind the construction of the suspension bridge before making his way to York, one of the host cities for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

E14 York to Skipton
Michael Portillo’s postwar exploration of Merseyside to Teesside finds him in York, a paradise for rail enthusiasts. In the company of some of the most famous locomotives ever built, he recalls the controversy surrounding their relocation from London to a freight depot in York. Michael crosses the magnificent Knaresborough viaduct, with its castellated walls and four beautiful arches over the River Nidd, to reach the spa town of Harrogate. On the edge of the elegant town, Michael discovers the gardens at Harlow Carr and learns how they opened in 1950 to test growing conditions for plants in northern climes. Across town, Michael checks into the headquarters of Yorkshire Tea. And his last destination on this leg of his journey is a bog near Skipton. In the 'gateway to the Dales', he joins members of Yorkshire Peat Partnership to find out what makes a bog.

E15  Northallerton to Chester-Le-Street
Michael Portillo confronts a detachment of Gurkhas, produces a fine heritage cheese and discovers a monster cracker that is key to making plastic, before ending his postwar journey from Merseyside to Teesside in a recreated 1950s street, where childhood memories are rekindled in the Beamish Museum hairdresser.

First broadcast: March-April 2024    
Duration: 30 minutes per episode    
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