Great American Railway Journeys

and riding the rails in the rest of the United States
Ben-Felsenburg-colour-176Cast your mind back to when Michael Portillo was defence secretary in the 1990s and the highlight of his ministerial career as he drove a tank across Salisbury Plain. Was he even then secretly hankering to indulge his lifelong passion for the railways? Since leaving politics, he has revealed himself to be a far more companionable personality than he ever seemed before, but then the demands of presenting shows on your favourite hobby pale against the stresses of Westminster.

In Great American Railway Journeys (BBC Two, Monday, 6.30pm), Portillo crosses the Atlantic for a grand tour steered by Appleton’s 1879 Guide To The United States And Canada. The starting point is New York, and staring up at the cathedral-like hall of Manhattan’s Grand Central Station – the world’s largest terminus – our man is overcome with near-religious ecstasy.

For America, trains are far more than a way to get around: the nation was forged by building a network that spanned the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and Portillo regales us with the compelling, if salutary, tale of the robber barons who built the railways. He also has an eye for the Big Apple’s history, and celebrates the pioneering skyscraper that is the Flatiron Building as a prime example of ‘all-American chutzpah’. The same might be said of the flame-red trousers he chooses to sport, were they not being worn by an Englishman.

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