Everyone has a place they started and this television travel documentary that we look at today was the first one that Michael Palin did ever! It ran between the years of 1980 and 1999 and had 27 epsiodes in total. Today we look at the travel documentary – Great Railway Journeys.

When the show originally aired, it was known as Great Railway Journeys of the World, the name only changed to a shorter version when it returned in 1994 a new series after a fourteen year hiatus. Now, this show worked on a premise of the show Worlds Most Dangerous Roads – Michael Palin would not present every episode instead others would host them such as Ludovic Kennedy, Eric Robson and Brian B Thompson.

The show was aired on BBC Two and each episode a different host would go on a different train journey and talk about their travels. Today because it is a Comedy article, we are specifically focussing on the episodes that Michael Palin did and the first one that he did for season one was an Episode called Confessions of a Trainspotter – where he travelled from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh.

The episode is 545 minutes long and sees a youong Michael Palin fulfill one of is life long dreams. You may not know this but Michael is a keen trainspotter and one of his dreams was to travel the length of the United Kingdom and in this show he does! He travels from Euston all the way to the Kyle of Lochalsh by train!

The episode first aired on the 27th November in 1980. The journey is not just on one train, instead he travels on a variety of trains that are both fast and slow, old and new. Over the years, he has returned to this television show to do more train journeys including Northern Ireland. There are many other comedians involved in the series over the years including Clive Anderson and Victoria Wood.