The WORST episodes of Great British Railway Journeys
Every episode of Great British Railway Journeys ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Great British Railway Journeys!
Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways have changed it, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains.
#1 - Ironbridge to Coseley
Season 16 - Episode 12 - Aired 4/22/2025
Michael Portillo is in Ironbridge Gorge on the River Severn, a hotbed of 18th-century innovation which features the world's first coke blast iron furnace.
#2 - Dorking to Lingfield
Season 16 - Episode 3 - Aired 4/9/2025
Michael Portillo’s railway tour of the Weald reaches the spectacular Surrey countryside, where he finds a surprising connection to the darker reaches of the universe.
#3 - Hildenborough to Robertsbridge
Season 16 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/8/2025
Michael Portillo’s rail exploration of the historic wooded region of south east England, known as the Weald, continues from Tonbridge, at the heart of the area's rail network.
#4 - Paddock Wood to Frant
Season 16 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/7/2025
Michael Portillo takes to the rails to explore one of Britain’s oldest surviving landscapes, the woods and pasture of the Weald in south east England.
#5 - Dumfries to Auchinleck
Season 16 - Episode 10 - Aired 4/18/2025
Michael concludes his journey from Cumbria to Dumfriesshire by crossing the Solway Firth into Scotland, where he visits the beautifully preserved last home of Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns.
#6 - Bangor to Betws y Coed
Season 12 - Episode 13 - Aired 5/12/2021
Michael Portillo continues his 1936 Bradshaw's-inspired railway tour of North Wales in the coastal city of Bangor before turning south from Llandudno Junction to travel the Conwy Valley Line to Betws y Coed, the gateway to Snowdonia.
#7 - Blackpool to Manchester Victoria
Season 8 - Episode 6 - Aired 1/9/2017
On a new journey across Bradshaw's Britain with his Victorian guidebook. He makes potent new friends in Fleetwood then heads to Manchester, where George Stephenson built the world's first modern railway line. This epoch-defining achievement is being incorporated into a new multi-million pound rail link between Manchester's Victoria and Piccadilly stations and Michael lends a hand with the welding. At a moving ceremony in Manchester Piccadilly station, Michael unveils a new monument to 87 railwaymen of the London and North Western Railway, who lost their lives in the Great War.
#8 - Northallerton to Chester-Le-Street
Season 15 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/5/2024
Michael Portillo confronts a detachment of Gurkhas, produces a fine heritage cheese and discovers a monster cracker, which is key to making plastic.
#9 - Blaenau Ffestiniog to Barmouth
Season 12 - Episode 14 - Aired 5/13/2021
In the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia, Michael Portillo reaches an abandoned mine, where in 1940 the wartime government sought sanctuary for the National Gallery's priceless art collection.
#10 - Liverpool to Uttoxeter
Season 15 - Episode 11 - Aired 4/1/2024
Michael Portillo twists and shouts through postwar Liverpool, visiting the strikingly contemporary Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and visits the former home of artist and poet Adrian Henri.
#11 - Rhyl to Anglesey
Season 12 - Episode 12 - Aired 5/11/2021
Michael Portillo's 1930s Bradshaw's-inspired railway tour of North Wales takes him to a coast lined by magnificent castles and sweeping bays.
#12 - Aberystwyth to Newtown
Season 12 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/14/2021
Armed with his 1930s Bradshaw's Guide, Michael Portillo travels from Aberystwyth into the Cambrian Mountains at Devil's Bridge and finishes in Newtown, Powys. Michael's 250-mile tour of North Wales draws to a close in style at the birthplace of the nation's first classical music festival, Gregynog Hall, near Newtown. Michael is intrigued to discover that its founders, sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, used the fortune they inherited from their grandfather, a noted Welsh railway builder, to establish the country estate as a centre for art and music from 1933. In the glorious music room, a Welsh harpist helps to evoke the spirit of festivals past and present.
#13 - Crewe to Shotton
Season 12 - Episode 11 - Aired 5/10/2021
Oh, Mr Porter, what could he do? Michael Portillo is in Crewe, a town steeped in railway history and immortalised in Victorian music hall, to investigate the making of the iconic cinema classic, The Night Mail during the 1930s.
#14 - Greystones to Dublin
Season 8 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/17/2017
At Trinity College, Dublin, Michael Portillo discovers one of Ireland's greatest treasures and learns how it became the symbol of the nation. There is a chance to sample the black stuff in a Dublin pub before Michael learns how Victorian royals were deployed to calm rocky relations between Britain and Ireland. He explores the magnificent house and gardens of Powerscourt in County Wicklow. Finding an angle on triangulation helps Michael to understand how Ireland was put on the map - and why.
#15 - Chippenham to Yeovil
Season 15 - Episode 2 - Aired 3/19/2024
Michael Portillo joins Navy Wings pilots for a spectacular close formation flight in the skies over Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton and visits the magnificent Elizabethan mansion of Longleat.
#16 - Solihull to Birmingham International
Season 16 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/25/2025
On the final leg of his Midlands tour, Michael Portillo travels to Solihull, the home of iconic British brand Land Rover. Later, he visits the childhood neighbourhood of JRR Tolkien.
#17 - Swanage to Portchester
Season 15 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/20/2024
Michael Portillo reaches England’s south coast to continue his exploration of postwar Britain, beginning on the steam-powered Swanage Railway in Dorset.
#18 - Saxmundham to Norwich
Season 11 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/23/2020
Michael Portillo heads for Snape Maltings, a concert and arts venue, and learns how the music and life of one of Britain’s greatest composers was shaped by the sea and his Suffolk surroundings.
#19 - Attleborough to Skegness
Season 11 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/24/2020
Michael Portillo is in Attleborough, at the headquarters of an international horse welfare organization which was established in the late 1920s, where he learns about the charity's pioneering founder.
#20 - Witham to Saffron Walden
Season 16 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/1/2025
Arriving in the Essex market town of Witham, Michael heads into the countryside to visit Terling Place, one of the county’s great country houses.
#21 - Bradford to Hebden Bridge
Season 14 - Episode 5 - Aired 6/23/2023
Michael Portillo continues his post-war exploration of northwest England in Bradford, Shipley and Hebden Bridge. In Bradford's Centenary Square, he encounters local literary giant, JB Priestley. At Shipley station, Michael discovers a nature reserve in the middle of the car park. Finally the Calder Valley Line delivers the presenter to the photogenic station at Hebden Bridge.
#22 - Edinburgh to Queensferry
Season 15 - Episode 9 - Aired 3/28/2024
At the former Midlothian mining village of Newtongrange, Michael meets the son of a miner whose name loomed large in the disputes of the 1970s and 1980s, 'Red' Mick McGahey.
#23 - Gatwick Airport to Royal Tunbridge Wells
Season 16 - Episode 4 - Aired 4/10/2025
Michael Portillo’s rail exploration of the spectacular countryside of the Weald in Surrey, Sussex and Kent continues - this time, aboard the Gatwick Express train.
#24 - Chichester to Amberley
Season 16 - Episode 5 - Aired 4/11/2025
Michael Portillo’s railway tour of the green and pleasant landscape between the North and South Downs, known as the Weald, nears its conclusion.
#25 - Windermere to Sellafield
Season 16 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/14/2025
Michael Portillo begins a railway tour of the spectacular border counties of Cumbria and Dumfriesshire, starting in the stunning Lake District National Park.