Great Railway Journeys

Great Railway Journeys, originally titled Great Railway Journeys of the World, is a recurring series of travel documentaries produced by BBC Television. The premise of each programme is that the presenter, typically a well-known figure from the arts or media, would make a journey by train, usually through a country or to a destination to which they had a personal connection. The first series, which used the longer title, was broadcast on BBC2 in 1980. After a 14-year hiatus, a further three series were broadcast between 1994 and 1999, using the shorter series title. Similar series were broadcast in 1983, Great Little Railways, and 2010, Great British Railway Journeys.
The first series featured the first television travelogue by comedian and comic actor Michael Palin ("Confessions of a Trainspotter"), who later presented a number of travel series starting with Around the World in 80 Days with Michael Palin in 1989.
English musician and sound artist Chris Watson worked as an audio recorder for the fourth episode "Los Mochis to Veracruz" of the fourth series. Having spent between five weeks to a month on the train, Watson used field recordings of the journey for his 2011 album El Tren Fantasma.
Episode summary for Series 1:
Episode summary for Series 2:
Episode summary for Series 3:
Episode summary for Series 4:
In 1983, the BBC made a further series on rail travel entitled Great Little Railways, this time exclusively featuring narrow gauge railways. This series relied on narrators rather than presenters who appeared on camera. In some cases, the narrator did not partake in the train journey, and read the writing of that episode's producer.
From January 2010, BBC Two broadcast Great British Railway Journeys, a documentary with a similar idea to Great Railway Journeys but a different format.
Journeys are mainly focused on Great Britain, but occasionally venturing onto railways in Ireland under the title Great British Railway Journeys Goes to Ireland. The programmes are presented by the ex-politician and broadcaster Michael Portillo. The first series detailed four railway journeys following an 1840 Bradshaw's Guide, split into a run of 20 separate episodes. A second series followed a year later.
By 2024, 15 series had been made, totalling 275 episodes.
From 2012, BBC Two also broadcast series of Great Continental Railway Journeys, documentaries with the same idea as Great British Railway Journeys, also presented by Portillo. It follows railway journeys in mainland Europe, following a 1913 Bradshaw's guide to European rail travel.
Other similar series followed: Great American Railway Journeys in 2016; Great Indian Railway Journeys in 2018; Great Alaskan Railroad Journeys, Great Canadian Railway Journeys, and Great Australian Railway Journeys in 2019; and Great Asian Railway Journeys in 2020.
Although there have been no complete series of Great Railway Journeys released on DVD, Michael Palin's 1980 and 1994 programmes are available individually (BBCDVD1626) and as part of a box set of his collected travel documentaries, The Michael Palin Collection (BBCDVD2214). All seven of the 1980 Series 1 programs, including Palin's Confessions of a Train Spotter, were released in 1986 in cooperation with the BBC on VHS tapes by Pentrex, a California railroad video company. They are now long out-of-print, but occasionally are offered from online sellers. The six episodes of 1994's Series 2 were also released on VHS. Often available in a six-pack of programmes, though also out-of-print, they are commonly found for purchase online. In 2020, the BBC made series 2 available on the BBC iPlayer, followed by most episodes of series 4 in 2024.
Books have been published to accompany the first three series, with a chapter by each of the presenters on their particular journey:
A similar book was also published on Great Little Railways: