Review: Great Railway Journeys of the World

Thirty years ago the BBC broadcast the series Great Railway Journeys of the World.  Each episode was presented by a different narrator and featured a unique itinerary.  The series has been reprised a few times over the last couple of decades, but I particularly like an episode that aired in 1980, hosted by Michael Palin, the starting point of Palin's involvement with future (and very popular) travel series endeavors.  I'll admit I'm slightly biased by my love for Monty Python, but I've read some of his memoirs and seen several of his other travel documentaries and I am very taken with his wonderfully descriptive narratives and insight.

You can judge for yourself, since all six parts of the episode "Confessions of a Trainspotter" are available on YouTube.

It begins in Euston Station in London and chronicles a journey that follows older, non-mainstream lines that take you all the way through eastern Scotland to Kyle of Lochalsh.  Along the way Palin fervently details a light historic account of rail transport in Britain.  I am a bit nutty for Scotland these days, and it's exciting for me to view footage of Edinburgh and Inverness that is thirty years old, and be unable to discriminate between documentary shots and those from my own vacation last September (except for those including adverts for Edinburgh Festival 1980).

For a television series the production value is quite impressive.  Pay particular attention to some of the grand, sweeping aerial footage during the end credits.

One of my favorite moments is the commentary on a small Highland games competition that Palin visits.

Of course, a documentary about trains in Britain would not be complete without taking a ride on one of its most famous, The Flying Scotsman steam engine.  When the show was produced you could still buy a ticket (an expensive one I imagine) to ride the Scotsman.  Since, the train has been in various stages of disrepair and subsequent restoration.  Currently, the locomotive is undergoing another restoration and is expected to be running a passenger service again by next year.

All of this only makes me wish for the next trip to Scotland, when I want to rent bicycles, take the train to Oban, ferry over to the Isle of South Uist, bike, ferry, and camp our way up to Stornoway on Lewis, and make our way back by ferry and rail (with perhaps a side stop to revisit Skye).  A great resource I found on this kind of activity is at Cycle Hebrides.