Michael Portillo continues his rail journey exploring England’s north east coast. Heading north from Newcastle, Michael discovers one of the city’s trendiest hotspots, Ouseburn, and is intrigued to hear of its part in Newcastle’s early industrial development.\n\nEn route, Michael travels through the huge Northumberland coalfield. At Cramlington, he alights to visit an extraordinary work of landform art made from the spoil of a coalmine, the vast Northumberlandia, known as the Lady of the North.\n\nNext stop is the former coal port of Blyth. On the historic quayside Michael enjoys a hearty sea shanty and learns about an intrepid former townsman, Captain William Smith, who in 1819 discovered the Antarctic. Michael meets a group of young people who have been inspired by the captain’s story to restore a Scottish Herring drifter, called a Zulu, with the Blyth Tall Ships Charity.\n\nAt Bedlington, Michael hunts down a lost railway, whose services began in 1850 but closed to passengers in 1964 following the Beeching Report. The 18-mile coastal Blyth and Tyne Railway is however rising from the ashes and test trains are already on the track.\n\nLynemouth Power Station once used coal to produce electricity but today has switched to biomass. Michael boards a half-kilometre long freight train loaded with wood pellets bound for the power station. He hears from the train driver and the fuel manager at Lynemouth how the decline of coal has affected their working lives and the region in which they live, and he learns how rail is playing its part in saving carbon.
Source: BBC 2
Series 3: 20. Wells-next-the-sea To The Wash
Michael Portillo’s rail exploration of the eastern reaches of England is drawing to a close. His travels today begin on the smallest public railway in the world, the Wells ...
13-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 19. West Runton To Burnham Market
The oldest and largest mammoth ever found in Britain was discovered by walkers on the beach at West Runton in Norfolk. Michael Portillo examines a replica of the smallest bone i ...
08-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 18. Lowestoft To Great Yarmouth
Michael Portillo’s East Anglian coastal railway journey takes him to the treacherous waters off the Norfolk coast, which have sunk many ships and cost many lives. Michael ...
07-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 17. Woodbridge To Southwold
Michael Portillo reaches the Deben estuary on his coastal railway journey around eastern England. At Woodbridge, he is plunged in at the deep end on a rafting challenge with the ...
07-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 16. Canvey Island To Wrabness
Michael Portillo embarks on a new railway journey around the coast of the east of England. He begins in the Thames estuary, where creeks separate Canvey Island from the mainland ...
02-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 15. Faversham To Chatham
Michael Portillo’s railway adventure zig-zagging the coasts of the English Channel and the Thames estuary nears its end on the north Kent coast. The pretty and historic to ...
01-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 14. Birchington-on-sea To Whitstable
Michael Portillo’s railway exploration of the Channel coastline and Thames estuary via Calais has reached the Isle of Thanet. Flat and temperate, it is excellent terrain f ...
29-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 13. Dover To Margate
Michael Portillo’s railway adventure along the north and south coasts of the English Channel resumes in Dover, where he recalls the biggest evacuation in military history. ...
25-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 11. Eastbourne To Rye
Michael Portillo sets off on a new railway adventure to explore the twin shores of the English Channel and the estuaries of the Thames and Medway.\n\nAt Cuckmere Haven, he enjoy ...
24-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 12. Folkestone To Le Touquet
Michael Portillo travels through the longest undersea tunnel in the world on the Eurotunnel shuttle rail service from Folkestone to Calais.\n\nIn Calais, Michael is reminded tha ...
24-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 6. Cardigan Bay To Abergynolwyn
Michael Portillo embarks on a railway journey around the ragged rocks of the western coast of Wales. He begins on the Victorian Cliff Railway at Aberystwyth, rising above the hi ...
10-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 1: 6. Inverness To The Cairngorms
Michael Portillo crosses the Culloden Viaduct aboard the Caledonian Sleeper to arrive bright and early in the coastal city of Inverness, from where he heads north on a magnifice ...
13-05-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 18. Lowestoft To Great Yarmouth
Michael Portillo’s East Anglian coastal railway journey takes him to the treacherous waters off the Norfolk coast, which have sunk many ships and cost many lives. Michael ...
07-08-2024
BBC 2
Series 2: 2. Liverpool To Blackpool
From the Isle of Man, Michael Portillo crosses the Irish Sea, bound for the mighty port of Liverpool and its historic waterfront. \n\nAt the International Slavery Museum in Roya ...
22-06-2023
BBC 2
Series 3: 13. Dover To Margate
Michael Portillo’s railway adventure along the north and south coasts of the English Channel resumes in Dover, where he recalls the biggest evacuation in military history. ...
25-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 1: 16. Fairlie To Port Glasgow
Michael Portillo explores the magnificent western coast of Scotland by rail and ferry, from the Firth of Clyde to the Outer Hebridean island of Lewis and Harris. Travelling aboa ...
27-05-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 5. Isles Of Scilly
Michael Portillo nears the end of his railway adventure tracking the rugged coast of south west England. He finishes in the westernmost reaches of England, in the Scillonian arc ...
10-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 3: 11. Eastbourne To Rye
Michael Portillo sets off on a new railway adventure to explore the twin shores of the English Channel and the estuaries of the Thames and Medway.\n\nAt Cuckmere Haven, he enjoy ...
24-07-2024
BBC 2
Series 2: 7. Whitby To Robin Hood's Bay
Michael Portillo continues his railway adventure at Whitby, where he explores the port’s shipbuilding and seafaring heritage.\n\nIn Grosmont, Michael boards the first stea ...
27-07-2023
BBC 2
Series 3: 7. Harlech To Abedaron
Michael Portillo continues his railway journey in north Wales, tracking the coastline north from Harlech to skirt the Llyn Peninsula. \n\nBeginning on the shifting sands of Morf ...
14-07-2024
BBC 2