Great British Railway Journeys
| Great British Railway Journeys | |
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| Genre | Travel documentary |
| Presented by | Michael Portillo |
| Composer(s) | Jon Wygens |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of series | 8 |
| No. of episodes | 170 |
| Production | |
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| Running time | 30 minutes |
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| Distributor | BBC |
| Release | |
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| Original release | 4 January 2010 – present |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Great Railway Journeys |
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| External links | |
| Website | www |
Great British Railway Journeys is a BBC documentary series presented by Michael Portillo. It premiered in 2010 on BBC Two, and has returned each year for a total of eight series.
The series features Portillo travelling around the railway networks of Great Britain and Ireland, referring to an 1840s copy of Bradshaw's Guide, comparing how the various destinations have changed since Victorian times.
Portillo has gone on to present two related series, Great Continental Railway Journeys from 2012, and Great American Railroad Journeys which began in 2016.
The Bradshaw's Guide were a series of Victorian guidebooks written by George Bradshaw; it was the first comprehensive timetable and travel guide of the railway system in Great Britain, which at the time although extensive, still comprised a series of fragmented and competing railway companies and lines each publishing their own literature.
Classified by the BBC in both the travel and history genres, the series features Portillo using the guide to plan his journeys, in the process visiting points of interest picked out in the guide and comparing its content with the modern world, both the physical and cultural.
Each series features Portillo travelling a different route each week, with each daily episode being one short leg of the journey. The weekly journey is chosen to fit with a theme, either geographic, such as coast to coast, or historic. Filmed entirely on location, the series features a mix of Portillo delivering dialogue to camera, as well as performing ad-hoc interviews with members of the public or fellow travellers, in addition to pre-arranged interviews.
All episodes were originally broadcast on weekdays on BBC Two, in the 6:30pm timeslot. Some series were simulcast on BBC HD before its demise. Repeats have been aired on BBC Four and BBC One, as well as the original channel of BBC Two. Edited versions of the episodes, reduced to about 23 minutes (excluding commercials), have been shown on the television channel Yesterday.
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