"Director: Tom Richardson"

• Great American Railroad Journeys: Series 1 to 3 | DVD | (01/10/2018) from £11.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A companion to the phenomenally successful Great British Railway Journeys, this series sees Michael Portillo swap his treasured copy of Bradshaw's Handbook for its stateside counterpart an 1879 edition of Appleton's General Guide to the United States and Canada. This eleven-DVD set features 55 episodes covering six different journeys: New York City to Niagara Falls Philadelphia to Jamestown St. Louis, Missouri, to the Grand Canyon The Twin Cities to Memphis, Tennessee Boston, Massachusetts, to Toronto, Ontario Reno, Nevada, to San Diego, California Michael's first journey takes him from New York City to Niagara Falls and the second traverses the mid-Atlantic cities and states: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Jamestown, Virginia. The third follows the trail of 19th-century pioneers from St. Louis to the Grand Canyon. Michael's fourth journey begins in Minnesota's Twin Cities and ends in Memphis, Tennessee, while the fifth takes him a thousand miles from leafy New England over mountain ranges to the Great Lakes. In his sixth and final journey Michael travels a thousand miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains south along the coast of California to tell the story of a state that has transformed the world. Along the way Michael encounters revolutionaries and feminists, pilgrims and witches and rides some of the oldest and most breathtaking railroads in the world. He takes in Broadway, attempts to conduct a cattle auction, discovers gold and silver, learns how America's most famous railroad conquered the wild landscapes of the west and immerses himself in the culture and history of the continent's first inhabitants: the Native Americans.

• Great British Railway Journeys: Series 5 | DVD | (30/01/2017) from £17.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Michael Portillo takes to the tracks with a copy of George Bradshaw's Victorian Railway Guidebook. In a series of four epic journeys, Portillo travels the length and breadth of the country to see how the railways changed us, and what of Bradshaw's Britain remains. This 4 DVD set features 20 episodes covering 4 different journeys: Manchester to Chesterfield London to Leeds Southampton to Wolverhampton Norwich to Chichester On his first journey of this series, Michael Portillo goes from Manchester, birthplace of George Bradshaw the publisher of this trusted guide, to Chesterfield, burial place of George Stephenson, the father of the railway. For the second journey Michael is guided by his Bradshaw's from London's Euston station to Leeds. He finds out what happened to the once proud Euston Arch and then alights at Cheddington, scene of the Great Train Robbery. On the third journey of the series, Michael begins at Southampton where he learns to set tables aboard the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth before she sets sail. He finishes in Wolverhampton where he hears Queen Victoria made an emotional visit which signalled the end of her exile from public life after mourning her husband, Prince Albert. The final journey takes Michael from one cathedral city, Norwich and a painful encounter with a polecat, through to another cathedral city, Chichester, from where he heads for a taste of life in the fast lane at Goodwood.