new series of great railway journeys

[Bar Side]

Is it just me or did the steam loco change colour on the S&C ephisode? A red LMS Jubilee one minute & a green Royal Scot the next? They cut backwards & forwards a couple of times.

 

Ivan

[Beardybloke]

Not just you, Ivan - I spotted that too! It seemed to me like the Jub was the train that Michael was on, and the Scot was used to make up some of the required footage. I don't know the S&C well enough to be able to tell if the locations were out of sequence though.

 

Still a distinctly enjoyable watch though

[Oldfield_Park]

I'm about to watch what I understand to be a Swindon-Bristol journey. I happened to be at Bath station whilst he was filming and spent a good few moments watching him try to do his piece to camera by the taxi rank whilst being quizzed by a little old lady (with the strongest Somerset accent imaginable) as to who he was and what he was doing.

[Beardybloke]

I'm about to watch what I understand to be a Swindon-Bristol journey. I happened to be at Bath station whilst he was filming and spent a good few moments watching him try to do his piece to camera by the taxi rank whilst being quizzed by a little old lady (with the strongest Somerset accent imaginable) as to who he was and what he was doing.

 

Brilliant! Let's hope they show that at some point

 

Tonight's was a good one, I thought - though I always thought that the Duke of York marching 10,000 men up and down hills referred to his indecision in Flanders?

 

Suppose they need to sell the hotel somehow

[The Stationmaster]

 

Tonight's was a good one, I thought - though I always thought that the Duke of York marching 10,000 men up and down hills referred to his indecision in Flanders?

 

 

It did - the hill concerned can be seen (an excellent view in fact) from the LGV Nord.

[Bilbo]

Well Mr Portillo is a magician because he did even better this week and transformed a whole train from 4277 pulling a whole load of choc/cream stock to King Edward 1 pulling a whole load of maroon stock and in between he even managed to have a pannier tank pulling the train. DCC could never do that !!!!

[JohnDMJ]

He also entered a HST set by the rotating door at the end of the coach but left by the sliding doors in the middle!

 

Let us not forget, however, that this series is primarily a celebration of Bradshaw's Guide and a comparison between the time of writing, 150 years ago, and the present day!

[The Stationmaster]

He also entered a HST set by the rotating door at the end of the coach but left by the sliding doors in the middle!

 

Let us not forget, however, that this series is primarily a celebration of Bradshaw's Guide and a comparison between the time of writing, 150 years ago, and the present day!

 

I don't have a Bradshaw (from then or any other time but my 1850 timetable reflects a rather different state of affairs from that which Portillo is looking at this week as at the time when his Bradshaw was published the GWR effectively finished at Bristol and these lines didn't become part of the GWR until the late 1870s/'80s.

[JohnDMJ]

Wikipedia suggests "At last, some order had been imposed on the chaos that had been created by some 150 rail companies whose tracks criss-crossed the country and whose largely uncoordinated network was rapidly expanding."

 

This seems to suggest that the lines were already in place even if not under the collective banner of GWR.

[Steven B]

He also entered a HST set by the rotating door at the end of the coach but left by the sliding doors in the middle!

 

Let us not forget, however, that this series is primarily a celebration of Bradshaw's Guide and a comparison between the time of writing, 150 years ago, and the present day!

 

 

It's a very enjoyable series but the miss-matching trains is anoying. You wouldn't have Jeremy Clarkson being filmed getting into a red Ferarri, then seen driving a blue Focus and getting out of a green Jaguar. Nor does Judy Dench's costume change colour half-way through a scene in Cranford.

 

And since when did a steam engine have a furnace rather than a firebox?

 

It was interesting to see the snippet on the china clay train. I bet DBS which they'd got a bit more coverage after turning out what looked to be a spotless DBS red class 66.

 

Happy modelling.

 

Steven B.

[Neal Ball]

We have thoroughly enjoyed the series, which I guess is aimed at the general public rather than enthusiasts who could see that the train to Windermere was shown on the way in and the way out, by the same bridge, going in the same direction! - But hey ho!

 

We have missed a couple, are they going to be released on DVD?

[craigwelsh]

Its worth noting every eBay listing of a Bradshaws timetable either has a question "Is this the thing Michael Portillo is using?" or a statement saying "Note this is only a timetable with some hotel adverts in the back and NOT the sort of guide Michael Portillo is using!". Ah the joys of popularity.

 

Incidentally I found a 1914 Bradshaw in the club last night though its not long for this world!

 

I do find it a bit aloof and awkward and the researcher putting the footage together seems rather lax as well as red/green colour blind. Impressively even my mum noticed a pannier tank is not King Edward I, so much for GWR standardisation . Their run down from Bristol behind the King was actually filmed by a helicopter last summer so I have a feeling that may be where the footage is coming from.

 

For all its flaws though it is still one of the better programs on YouTube..

[papagolfjuliet]

KE1 seems to be following Portillo. It even managed to put in an unadvertised guest appearance on Peak Rail during yesterday evening's broadcast.

[Adrian]

It's a very enjoyable series but the miss-matching trains is anoying. You wouldn't have Jeremy Clarkson being filmed getting into a red Ferarri, then seen driving a blue Focus and getting out of a green Jaguar.

Actually that's not far off the mark, there have been quite a few "continuity" errors in Top Gear. Do you remember them taking the road trip in his GT40 from London down to the Millau bridge? Did it not seem strange that the sun was setting in the east? That's because they started at the Millau bridge and they drove north.

 

At least it doesn't spoil the fun.

[Scale7JB]

This may go slightly off topic

 

Despite many inaccuracies that will always appear in factual programs about railways, heritage or not, we really should embrace any and all instances of railways as a form of enjoyment that are featured on national television.

 

I can think of a few instances where untrue or incorrect things have been mentioned or shown in the media... anything from the broken third 'electrical' rail on the underground (supposedly a possible cause for an accident of cataclysmic proportions) that reached headline news around 10 years back, all the way up to some inaccuracies in the video telling you how to drive a steam engine (I seem to remember that the presenter of the video was confused by an 'IN'jector and an 'E'jector).

 

The TopGear feature with Tornado was a spectacular success for our hobby, as well as mainline and heritage steam. There were though some unhappy viewers from what I have heard. I was told of a large number of people who wrote and complained to one of the major Steam magazines about the lack of coverage in the program about Tornado. They wanted to see more of the engine, and what it was all about.... Clearly they forgot that this was a car program, and that our hobby couldn't ever dream to have such limelight as this

 

This isn't a rant at all, far from it! I think that all and any coverage of our hobby, so long as it is portrayed in a positive light, is superb. We shouldn't worry about continuity, and indeed rise above the errors, and enjoy every second of national TV coverage that we see on our screens. We know what is right and, errrrr not so right, but remember that these programs are aimed at Mr and Mrs Smith sitting down and having their fish supper and a cup of tea, so (I think) we shouldn't fret so much over the errors.

 

Sit back, enjoy, and hope that these programs spur families on, to travel to and support out heritage railways, and persuade our younger generations to get involved in railway modeling (and get them using their hands and brains to build something rather than numbing their brains by playing on the latest games console, something that I feel very strongly about). Myself, being involved in both the full size and the not so full size, heaven knows we need to create interest from anywhere we can so ensure the enduring legacy of this fantastic hobby.

 

Just my tuppence worth, and in no way meant to offend or contradict any of the previous posts

 

Happy Modeling :icon_thumbsup2:

 

Jonathan.

[Neal Ball]

Anyone heard about a DVD?

[iL Dottore]

Just watched today's episode, which was based around Manchester. I found it interesting, particularly the bit about Bradshaws, however there is one thing that annoyed me - Portillo was seen (several times) to get on a 142 Pacer, then it cut to the ariel view of 'train running through the landscape,' which was always a 3 car 158! Grrr!

 

Paul

Yes, I've noticed that too (I can now get UK TV here in Switzerland via Swisscom ). It seems that whomever is editing the programme thinks that all trains are the same (although I would have thought that even the most unaware film editor could spot the difference between - say - a pacer and a pendolino )

 

The series has struck me as being rather uneven, very much a case of being "The Curate's Egg" and Mr Portillo does occasionally come across more as a professional politician than a good travel presenter (e.g. like early Michael Palin). It would have been nice for them to have made more of the actual travelling itself (e.g comments on rolling stock, service, etc).

 

Still, it does bring to a wider public the pleasure (but alas nowt on the frustrations) of rail travel in modern Britain.