Portillo’s 200 Years Of The Railways on SBS and SBS on Demand S1E2 – 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of Britain’s greatest gift to the world: the passenger railway.
Michael Portillo embarks on a journey to explore what the railways have done, what they continue to do and the potential they hold to improve our future. He looks at how the railways propelled a second wave of the Industrial Revolution and shaped the social landscape of modern Britain and the world at large.
He travels around the UK, visiting areas like Shildon – home to a branch of the National Railway Museum which houses the world’s first ever passenger steam locomotive, Locomotion No 1. Ultimately, he reveals how this feat of British engineering changed the course of history.
Series One, Episode Two: How The Railways Changed Britain
Michael looks at the transformative effect of railways on Britain by travelling the world’s first intercity line between Liverpool and Manchester, which opened in 1830. In Manchester, Michael steps back in time to the world’s first intercity line.
Walking the Bridgewater Canal, he hears how the cotton trade drove its creation. Then Michael ends his journey back in Derby, at the spectacular gathering of locomotives from the last 200 years.
Portillo’s 200 Years Of The Railways on SBS and SBS on Demand – Final Episode / Tuesday 27 January at 8.30pm (2 parts)
TV Central SBS content HERE
Portillo’s 200 Years Of The Railways on SBS and SBS on Demand S1E2
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