Great Railway Journeys - Season 1

The Broadway Limited; The San Francisco Zephyr; The Coast Star-light; there are still famous trains to ride as you cross America. 
In the first of seven travel films, LUDOVIC KENNEDY retraces the journey of a fellow Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, who took an emigrant train from New Jersey to California in 1869. The modern journey is from Pennsylvania Station in New York to Union Station in Los Angeles. Along the line, Kennedy meets characters as diverse as Douglas Fairbanks Jr , Hobo Joe from Sacramento and Rogers Whitaker - aged 83 and generally acknowledged to be the world's greatest railroad buff. 

From Sydney to Perth the line goes, two thin ribbons of steel, all the way across from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean on the other side. It crosses most of the history of Australia as well as its geography. Across the Blue Mountains, down into the waterless waste of the New South Wales bush, through the Flinders Ranges into the Nullarbor Plain, where for 500 miles it runs without a curve, the longest straight railway line in the world. 
In the second of seven travel films, playwright and journalist MICHAEL FRAYN traces the Australian dream of a transcontinental railroad, not only on the East-West Indian Pacific, but on the eccentric Ghan train chugging north to Alice Springs at a reckless 17 mph. 

Nothing in the imagination can quite prepare the first-time visitor for the pure shock of India. But, armed with a 130 rail pass and some hazy notion of a destination, BRIAN THOMPSON boards the '85 Down Madras Mail' with a few inward butterflies - but all South India to aim at. 
It is a five-day journey, through four states and as many languages. Across the mighty plains of the Deccan and Mysore, and high up into the Nilgiri Mountains, home of the Ooty Club and the legendary Nilgiri Express. 

As a boy, Michael Palin spent hours on Sheffield Midland Station train-spotting. It's a habit he never outgrew, and now he fulfils every enthusiast's dream - a journey from one end of Britain to the other, from Euston to Kyle of Lochalsh, along routes steeped in railway history.

Cape Town to the Victoria Falls - still the most romantic railway journey in Africa. 
MICHAEL WOOD, a young historian, follows the trail of the empire builder, Cecil Rhodes. His journey takes him through the great wilderness of the Karoo and the diamond fields of Kimberley to the gold city of Johannesburg and its sprawling offspring. Soweto. 
Leaving South Africa, Wood travels through Botswana around the edge of the Kalahari into a war, for, in December 1979, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia was still a battlefield as the politicians argued out a cease-fire agreement in London.

The highest railroad in the world climbs the Peruvian Andes. After 60 tunnels, 45 bridges and switch-backs to 15,000 feet, MILES KINGTON gives up record-breaking and takes the only rail route southwards to Bolivia. From Cuzco, the Inca capital, Kington crosses some of the finest scenery in South America, riding variously on footplate, Pullman, vintage railcar and steamer - all built in Britain. 
Timetables and people he met suggested the route. So, well briefed on the local history of revolutions, Kington decided to try a smooth crossing of Lake Titicaca - the calm before the storm. He soon found the storm. 

First-class luxury on the Cisalpin from Paris to Montreux. Rack and pinion up and down Rigi Mountain. Steam at Zillerthal. Children running their own railway in Hungary. You can fly from London to Budapest in three hours. This journey involves 16 trains and as much time as you like.
Europe's railway network is still alive and well, but for how much longer?