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 2025. A total of 275 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in April 2026.
Last episode
25:00
25:00Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo visits Oldham's Victorian theatre, attends a knife-making workshop in Sheffield and goes to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield.
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25:00Michael Portillo is in Greater Manchester, hearing about the birth of the NHS and the first episode of Coronation Street.
Series 13
35:00
35:00Michael Portillo discovers the origins of Harry Beck's map of the London Underground, and explores the headquarters of Churchill's war cabinet.
25:00Michael Portillo is in London, where he tracks the River Thames from east to west. Starting in Dagenham, he ends up at the iconic Battersea Power Station.
25:00Michael Portillo travels to Hampstead, where he learns more about the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, before making his way to Islington.
25:00Michael Portillo continues his travels through the capital in the heart of London's East End, making his way from Hackney Wick to Oxford Circus.
35:00Michael Portillo continues his travels in Greater London, ending up in Kennington to learn about the childhood of Charlie Chaplin.
25:00Michael Portillo reaches the Kent seaside resort of Herne Bay, eventually crosses the North Downs to Lenham, and pays a visit to Leeds Castle.
25:00Michael Portillo heads to Walmer Castle, home during the 1920s to Lord Beauchamp, and in Margate he discovers the connection to TS Eliot.
25:00Michael Portillo follows his 1930s Bradshaw's guide to the unspoilt East Sussex port of Rye, then boards the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway to Dungeness.
35:00Michael Portillo arrives in Hassocks and the beautiful Sussex village of Ditchling, before making his way to the village of Benenden.
25:00Michael Portillo takes a trip in a Second World War Spitfire above Biggin Hill aerodrome.
Series 12 25:00
25:00Michael 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.
35:00Michael 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.
25:00Michael 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.
35:00Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green to learn about Henry Moore became one of the defining artists of British modernism.
25:00Michael Portillo's travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course, and visits the estate of author Barbara Cartland.