Atomic Systems

Great British Railway Journeys

Documentary series in which Michael Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country by train

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pykg ... s/upcoming

MARTIN

Let's hope it's shown on public TV here, and not gobbled up by SKY's UKTV. Thanks to them we haven't seen LOTSW for years and a lot of other decent Brit comedy series, either.

Cheers Bazza

CaptainBazza wrote:Let's hope it's shown on public TV here, and not gobbled up by SKY's UKTV. Thanks to them we haven't seen LOTSW for years and a lot of other decent Brit comedy series, either.

Cheers Bazza

I would say it will end up on DVD

Don't forget BBC 2 18:30hrs for those in the UK

MARTIN

Hi Martin

Thanks for the heads up.

Cheers
Jon

Hmmmm. Not as interesting as I thought it might have been! And not all that accurate with the railway facts, either.

I hope we all know that the Rocket wasn't the first locomotive in the world......and it was actually not even the first locomotive to be called "Rocket"! A brownie point for anyone who can tell who built the first Rocket.

And the Liverpool to Manchester line wasn't the first public railway line....the first between major towns/cities, yes!

And I'm surprised about the statement regarding the Rainham trials got past the "expert".....all the other entrants didn't blow up! The other two entrants that took part ,the Sanspareil and Novelty developed leaks that led to them being withdrawn. They certainly didn't blow up!

dkightley wrote:And I'm surprised about the statement regarding the Rainham trials got past the "expert".....all the other entrants didn't blow up! The other two entrants that took part ,the Sanspareil and Novelty developed leaks that led to them being withdrawn. They certainly didn't blow up!

Hmmm, Christian Wolmar making up stuff to make a good story, nah, he must be right...

Christian Wolmar so called railway expert,Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

wasnt very struck on it,a bit plain

MARTIN

Hmmm, Christian Wolmar making up stuff to make a good story, nah, he must be right...

Five entrants:

The Novelty - joints in the steam generator gave way and it was withdrawn on the morning of the final day of the trials

The Sanspareil - one of the cylinders (which had been supplied by Robert Stephenson's company) failed and the leak was too great for the engine to continue. The failure didn't really matter, at the loco had been disqualified as it was overweight.

The Rocket - which ran almost flawlessly during the trial

The Cyclopede - which was excluded by the judges as it was horse powered.

The Perseverance - was withdrawn by its owner as he didn't see how his design (which was a steam powered carriage) could compete.


And it was Mr Portillo who said the other entrants all blew up! Which just goes to show his interest in the railways.....

Saw it was on but I was too late. Has anyone spotted a repeat?

oldrocker wrote:Saw it was on but I was too late. Has anyone spotted a repeat?

12th Jan, BBC1 Half past midnight.

This is a railway programme in the sense that it deals primarily with the effect of the building of railways on the country, and eventually on the world, rather than a programme on the technicalities of railways. With s fair amount of guide book journalism thrown in.
The reasons for this are presumably because it is based on the original Bradshaw railway guide, which did include a lot of material descriptive of places and areas, apart from train times.
Michael Portillo was the Transport Minister at the time of the privatisation of the British railways.

Michael Portillo What mess he made of that I could be working at swindon still



Regards



John

30 minutes to part 2 BBC 2 18:30hrs

MARTIN

I'm finding the history side very interesting

see that class 142 gets around a lot or is it a new secret train changing shap all the time "shape-shifter"

lest than 1 minutes,BBC 2 18:30hrs

MARTIN

Don't forget you can catch up on iplayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... to_Eccles/