Michael Portillo: Great British Railway Journeys – #49 – #04/25 – S03E04 – Epping to Hackney

Michael Portillo – Great British Railway Journeys – this is a great series. .

Portillo’s enthusiasm is infectious and fun.

This Episode

Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw’s Victorian Railway Guidebook. Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us and what remains of Bradshaw’s Britain, in a series of five epic journeys.

Travelling along The Great Eastern Line which leads to London, Michael visits Essex to discover why dairy herds travelled there by rail from all over the country in 19th century. He also visits Waltham Abbey to see how the gunpowder made there fuelled the building of an empire and heads to Hackney to uncover the gruesome details of the first murder on a train.