Railway Journeys: V

The Right Honourable Michael Portillo begins another new series of his Great British Railway Journeys this evening, on BBC Two, from 6.30-7pm.

I'll record the entire series and view it at my leisure.

Series Five commences with a trip from Manchester to Birkenhead.

David Butcher writes:

Wearing one of his uniquely wince-making shirt/jacket pairings, Michael Portillo settles into a standard-class seat for another trip. There’s none of the sun-kissed romance of his continental railway journeys here: this week, he’ll follow a looping circuit from Manchester to Chesterfield via Birkenhead, but his (or his producer’s) ability to find diverting detours is undimmed.

Today our guide visits a beautifully murky Victorian library where, in a gothic alcove, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels dreamt up a philosophy not close to Portillo’s heart. He also visits Old Trafford stadium where a Manchester United guide tells him, in a segment not recorded recently, “We just seem to go from strength to strength.”

1/20. New series:-

Armed with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook, Michael Portillo embarks on another journey around the country to discover how the railways have affected people and communities, and the legacy they have left behind.

He begins in Manchester, where he finds out how the world's first industrialised city produced a revolutionary political movement, and learns about the railway workers who founded one of the most successful football clubs of all time.

Along the way, the presenter does the washing in Port Sunlight - a model village on the Wirable - and hears stories about the aptly named George Francis Train's time in Birkenhead, Merseyside.