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 223 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in May 2025.
Last episode
25:00
25:00Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo travels the length and breadth of Britain by train, discovering micro-mines, romantic ruins and an iconic bridge as he chugs through south Wales.
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25:00Relive the delights of Victorian Britain by rail. Michael Portillo learns about the secrets of Worcester sauce and the health benefits of Malvern water.
35:00Travels with a 19th-century guidebook. Michael Portillo gets a special view of Oxford, tastes a steam-powered brew and discovers a colourful crop in the Cotswolds.
25:00Chug along with Michael Portillo, who unearths the amazing oil fields beneath England's seaside resorts and discovers the crucial role Weymouth played on D-Day.
Series 12
30:00
30:00Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the Home Counties in the picturesque and historic county town of Guildford.
Series 10 30:00
30:00Michael Portillo travels from Maltby to Hinckley, trying to understand the appeal of Marmite, before a look around the Triumph motorcycle factory.
Series 3 25:00
25:00A Victorian voyage by train. Michael Portillo seeks out venomous adders in the New Forest, uncovers a secret library in Wimborne and visits the Poole potteries.
25:00Roving by rail. Michael Portillo discovers what did amuse Queen Victoria, as he travels by train to her favourite holiday destination - the Isle of Wight.
35:00Train travels. Michael Portillo samples a Victorian superfood in Alton, explores the wonderfully preserved Whitchurch Silk Mill and takes control of a steam train.
25:00Michael Portillo's latest railway excursion is fit for royalty, as he follows Queen Victoria's regular journey south from Windsor - collecting the mail on the way.
Series 14 30:00
30:00Michael Portillo travels from London's Docklands to the Barbican, examining the story of the arrival at Tilbury in 1948 of over a thousand passengers from the Caribbean.
30:00Michael Portillo continues his post-war exploration of northwest England in Bradford and Shipley, before ending at Hebden Bridge.
Series 12 35:00
35:00Michael Portillo heads for leafy Hatch End, where he investigates an illustrator whose work was so popular in the 1920s and 30s that his name entered the English dictionary.
Series 3 25:00
25:00London's calling for Michael Portillo, as he enjoys a ride on a secret miniature railway beneath the capital's streets and rings the church bells in Bow.
25:00Travelogue meets Victorian history in this fascinating series with Michael Portillo. Here the This Week regular heads to Hackney, hearing about an on-board murder.
35:00The 'sad man on a train' - as he is known to Andrew Neil - tours Victorian freak show sites by rail and rides one of the very first electric railways in Southend.
25:00Michael Portillo's train-hopping travels take him to the Port of Felixstowe. The Bradshaw buff traces the lost city of Dunwich - Britain's very own Atlantis.
Series 12 25:00
25:00Michael Portillo continues his travels through England's Home Counties at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, where he discovers the legacy of a German Jewish doctor who fled the Nazis.
Series 3 25:00
25:00Michael Portillo takes to the tracks yet again. The ex-MP discovers the grave-robbing past of Great Yarmouth and works a Victorian swing bridge in Reedham.
Series 2 25:00
25:00Travelling by train up the breathtaking west coast of Scotland to Skye, Michael Portillo discovers how the railways helped train commandos at Lochailort for WWII.