Great British Railway Journeys
Great British Railway Journeys is a TV show on BBC4. All aboard! Michael Portillo explores the UK the railways made. Uncover hidden gems and fascinating communities from across the nation. The program has been available since 2025. A total of 275 episodes have been broadcast, most recently in January 2026.
Last episode
25:00
25:00Great British Railway Journeys
Greater Manchester’s Metrolink tram delivers Michael to the former cotton town of Oldham. He heads across to Wakefield and the striking postwar sculptures of Barbara Hepworth.
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25:00
Michael Portillo travels from Aberystwyth into the Cambrian Mountains at Devil's Bridge, and finishes in Newtown, Powys.
Series 14
25:00
25:00Michael Portillo is in Greater Manchester, hearing about the birth of the NHS and the first episode of Coronation Street.
Series 12 25:00
25:00Michael Portillo explores Snowdonia, the town of Porthmadog, and the village Portmeirion, crafted by Bertram Clough Williams-Ellis.
25:00Michael 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.
35:00Michael 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.
Series 14 35:00
35:00Michael Portillo explores the Britain of his youth, starting at Preston's Fulwood Barracks and heading to Bury Bolton Street Station in Greater Manchester.
Series 12 25:00
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.
25:00Michael Portillo heads for the Hertfordshire village of Perry Green to learn about Henry Moore became one of the defining artists of British modernism.
35:00Michael Portillo's travels resume in leafy Hertfordshire, where he attempts a canoe slalom course, and visits the estate of author Barbara Cartland.
25:00Michael 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.
25:00Michael Portillo heads for Farnborough, Hampshire, famous today for its airshow and home to what was then the Royal Aircraft Establishment.
35:00Michael Portillo resumes his tour of the Home Counties in the historic town of Guildford. Eventually he crosses into Hampshire to reach Aldershot.
25:00Michael Portillo travels to leafy Hatch End in north-west London, where he meets the great-nephew of the famous illustrator William Heath Robinson.
25:00Michael Portillo continues his travels through England's Home Counties at Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, before making his way to Beaconsfield.
25:00Michael Portillo sets out on another railway adventure as he explores Britain between the world wars, beginning a tour of the Home Counties and beyond in Oxford.
Series 11 35:00
35:00Michael Portillo begins the last leg of his rail journey through 1930s Britain in Norfolk at the headquarters of an international horse welfare organisation.
25:00Michael Portillo's journey takes him to the Snape Maltings music and arts venue, the Norfolk seaside resort of Great Yarmouth and the city of Norwich.