Great British Railway Journeys - Series 5 (2014)

On his first journey of this series, Michael Portillo goes from Manchester, birthplace of George Bradshaw – the publisher of this trusted guide, to Chesterfield, burial place of George Stephenson, the father of the railway. For the second journey Michael is guided by his Bradshaw’s from London’s Euston station to Leeds. He finds out what happened to the once proud Euston Arch and then alights at Cheddington, scene of the Great Train Robbery. On the third journey of the series, Michael begins at Southampton where he learns to set tables aboard the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth before she sets sail. He finishes in Wolverhampton where he hears Queen Victoria made an emotional visit which signalled the end of her exile from public life after mourning her husband, Prince Albert. The final journey takes Michael from one cathedral city, Norwich and a painful encounter with a polecat, through to another cathedral city, Chichester, from where he heads for a taste of life in the fast lane at Goodwood.