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 285 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in July 2025.
Last broadcast:18/07/2025 at 08:35
Last episode
25:00


Great British Railway Journeys
Michael Portillo travels to Hampstead, where he learns more about the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, before making his way to Islington.
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Michael Portillo continues his travels through the capital in the heart of London's East End, making his way from Hackney Wick to Oxford Circus.


Michael Portillo continues his travels in Greater London, ending up in Kennington to learn about the childhood of Charlie Chaplin.


Michael Portillo reaches the Kent seaside resort of Herne Bay, eventually crosses the North Downs to Lenham, and pays a visit to Leeds Castle.


Michael Portillo heads to Walmer Castle, home during the 1920s to Lord Beauchamp, and in Margate he discovers the connection to TS Eliot.


Michael 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.


Michael Portillo arrives in Hassocks and the beautiful Sussex village of Ditchling, before making his way to the village of Benenden.


Michael Portillo takes a trip in a Second World War Spitfire above Biggin Hill aerodrome.
Series 16
Series 12
25:00


Michael Portillo travels from Aberystwyth into the Cambrian Mountains at Devil's Bridge, and finishes in Newtown, Powys.


Michael Portillo explores Snowdonia, the town of Porthmadog, and the village Portmeirion, crafted by Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis.


Michael 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.


Michael Portillo's 1930s Bradshaw's-inspired railway tour of north Wales takes him to Colwyn Bay, Rhyl and Anglesey.


Michael Portillo visits Crewe, a town steeped in railway history, to investigate the making of cinema classic The Night Mail during the 1930s.


Michael 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.


Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green to learn about Henry Moore became one of the defining artists of British modernism.


Michael Portillo's travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course, and visits the estate of author Barbara Cartland.


Michael 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.


Michael 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.


Michael Portillo heads for Farnborough, Hampshire, famous today for its airshow and home to what was then the Royal Aircraft Establishment.