Great Western Coffee Shop

FGW website promoting Michael Portillo's next Great British Railway Journey running this week from Swindon-Penzance.
http://www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk/Content.aspx?id=4669

And my BT Vision box went down at the weekend!

I'd got this set up to record....I'll never get home at that time either.

It'll be on BBC iPlayer soon...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_two (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_two)

Only for 7 days.....and they can't send an engineer until February....Grrrr

Bad luck if they give you the new V box - apparently it's not as good.

Good job you don't live in Norway and your box died just before an epic documentary that NRK (local BBC equivalent) showed to mark the 100th anniversary of the Oslo-Bergen line  last November.

It ran for... seven hours, 16 minutes, the end-to-end timing of the train they filmed on. They reckon that 1.2 million Norwegians watched all or part of it. That's out of a population of 4.7 million.

There's a bit about it in English and a taster from the high mountain section of the line around Finse here http://nrkbeta.no/2009/12/18/bergensbanen-eng/
along with a link for a torrent download with a slightly reduced running time. Pretty much the ultimate cab ride.

The programme is also broken into segments here http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/581966 (seem to be rather temperamental and not very Mac-friendly, I'm afraid). NB, the commentary is in Norwegian.

I'm not sure if they are planning to produce an English version. I'll post details if I hear anything. I am awaiting delivery of a DVD version to put my very very rusty Norwegian to the test.

And if you think our railway staff had it tough in recent weeks, there's also a short NRK documentary about the snowplough and track crews on the mountain section of the Bergensbanen and Flamsbana here http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/482192
Again all in Norwegian but the pictures speak for themselves.

PS: If you have missed any Great Railway Journeys, the recorder didn't work, etc, they are being repeated in the wee small hours on BBC1 (no set time by the look of it), running a few days behind the BBC2 broadcasts. Tomorrow (ie Weds) at 3.40am it's the Settle to Garsdale one.

Thanks for posting this.  My wife and I had our honeymoon on the Bergensbana and Flamsbana.  She has been an avid consumer of British Transport Films DVDs, but as they appear to have stopped releasing any more of those for the moment, a DVD of Norwegian trains might be just the thing for her next Birthday.  Where did you order your DVD from?

They obviously wanted to experience seeing an HST arrive on their platform, it transform into a (150 ?) DMU  for them to board, then into what looked like Mk 2 coaches, for departure. I was waiting for it to do the same as the steam loco at the end of Back to the Future III - perhaps tonight !

Tonight was he pulled by a 2-8-0 tank or a King from Paignton to Kingswear.

Anyone notice the deliberate mistake by the driver of the 52XX when he was on the footplate.

....and, very briefly, double headed !

I recorded it, last night, to watch today. The scene where the train is reversing out of Kingswear Station (filmed from the helicopter) looked a bit "odd", so I ran it through several times nice and slowly - very, very odd indeed !
The smoke and steam from the King is being sucked back INTO the funnel and, even better, all the cars are driving backwards !!!

This is actually quite a good series, but I find I spend more and more time looking for the mistakes in the truly appalling editing.   

I would love to see Match of The Day edited by this bunch; Arsenal V Man Utd V Chelsea V W Ham V Man City V Everton.................V Saracens   :D

Well it was very nice to learn about my local area  ;)

I'm impressed he got the names of Hookhills & Broadsands viaducts correct! Another amusing thing - he arrived in Kingswear, and transferred across to Dartmouth, however the Salmon fishing section was filmed from the quay at Stoke Gabriel which is on the Kingswear side of the river. Whoops  :P

Just watched it again on the Iplayer in HD.  It happens around 13 minutes.  The car is absolutely hilarious.

If you watch carefully (on HD) the clip immediately before this, you can actually see that the camera's lens is dirty!

Up to now I've been quite interested, but tonights (thursdays) programme was dull!!!!
Good if you're a fisherman or gardener but otherwise, yawn time

I think the production company were struggling to fill a full weeks programmes on the western route.

I agree - even had to fast forward through some parts.

Not too many irregularities today.  No cars driving backwards, although the FGW Intercity 125 did occasionally turn into a Class 150 and then into a XC train (think this was also an HST).

Just been catching up on the 'Wesscundry' episodes.

It's strikes me as such a shame that the local authority in W-S-M seems fixated on the ' Tropicana' redevelopment, yet Birnbeck Pier is surely more deserving of funding to bring it back into public use. Such a rich history......

Does anyone else find Portillo really patronising in this? It's as if the only people watching are from South East England, and have never been to the north!

I think he was being quite generous to the north, it is rather grim after all... ;)





(tounge in cheek, Manchester is lovely)

He certainly wouldn't have been my choice as a presenter - that smug grin is enough to put me off, and to me he's been quite stilted and awkward in his conversations with most people he's 'met'. I've only seen about 4 episodes but just about the only time I found him genuine and endearing was when he was in Bristol's old train shed.

Hmm.  Well, I've just watched my first episode - Swindon to Bristol - on BBC iPlayer, and I was rather impressed, actually.

Clearly, all of these 'meetings' will have been set up well beforehand, so they will appear stilted, as all the participants try to make out it was 'just a chance meeting' for the benefit of the camera!

I agree, Portillo seemed quite genuine in his enthusiasm for all of the architecture at Bristol Temple Meads - the present station, the old engine shed and the old frontage in Temple Gate.

I now look forward to watching the Yatton to Weston episode!  ::)

I'll concede that the vox pops are a little strained, but no worse than the kind of thing we get on local TV news. However, I did like the guy in Swindon mentioning that it was his (Portillo's) boss that closed down Swindon Works in the mid 80's!!

Overall I've found Portillo's love for the subject matter to be genuine. There might well be better TV personalities out there, but I think he's made a good fist of it.

And to get 4 weeks of rail related programming on (almost) prime time network TV is surely to be welcome.

Yes, perhaps I was being a little over critical. Perhaps I'm just used to experts (Michael Palin), comedians (Ian Hislop) or more shapely legs (Julia Bradbury).  ;)

Well, I wouldn't disagree with you there, IndustryInsider!  ;)

Yes, that made I larf, too! ;D  To be fair, though, Michael took it in good humour.

I've just watched the following episode - Yatton to Weston-super-Mare.  Again, I was quite impressed - disregarding the quirky continuity!  ::)


And yes, I thought the same: what a waste of a potential tourist attraction - just look how successful it was in the past!  :(

I like the way he has an enthusiasm for the subject of the programme....

BUT

If I were a Northerner, I would be insulted. The way he spoke to the "plebs" in Liverpool and other places was just cringeworthy.

And as for half a pint of cider being enough to give him a hangover the next day - pleeaaaaaaase. ;D

PS: before anyone moans at me - I still like the series! ;)

I've never seen her in anything other than trousers !!  Does she wear skirts after the "watershed" ?

Somewhat less apparently, according to this other forum (which is no match for the Coffee Shop, so I hope the public interest in answering IndustryInsider's question outweighs posting the link to it).

http://www.bristol-rail.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1650

Sorry to interrupt your viewing pleasure, but I just thought I'd 'fess up to having edited in the original date of this topic. Probably just me, but every time I logged in I was caught out thinking the programme was on tonight at 6.30!

It was on every night last week, not just on the 18th!

The final week looks interesting. Buxton to London via the West Mids! Could have a whole month just on that! :o

Presumably he travels on Chiltern... ;)

(I havn't seen Fridays as I was in Totnes (not spending their currency I should add however I doubt the pub/hotel accepts it), so do enlighten me)

Nor have I.

I will iPlayer it tomorrow.

Since when did saturdays become part of next week?

After the next general election  ;D

I have found the series quite good.  Portillo is not my favorite presenter but he obviously has an interest in the Bradshaw's guide, ok so some of the continuity is not too great but then the program is not about trains of today it is about how the railways changed places and how they have changed since Bradshaw's day

^(cough)    Thanks, John!  :-X

^(cough) indeed!

Say no more: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M_mqaWnXsg

Or: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCk8FlkuAlM&feature=related

 :o

I need a cold shower ...  ::) :-[ ;D

In the spirit of impartiality and equality, I've gone looking for pictures and videos of Michael Portillo in his speedos - no luck unfortunately!

 ;D ;D ;D

Obviously just me then that thinks Julia resembles a Deltic with her flat front and long nose  ;D  :P

looks like it....

Me too post  ;D

for those who may have missed them last week, the FGW programmes are on again each night this week on BBC1, anywhere between 01.00 and 03.00..  still no Julia though.. :-[

Hi All,

Some of you may be interested in the latest Julia photo

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2010/04/06/celebrities-strip-naked-for-cancer-research-pictures-115875-22165140/

Hope this is not agianst the rules it is for a good cause

Just don't scroll through the slideshow, as next up is Christopher Biggins!  :o

Just been watching Rob Bell on "5 select" "Walking Lost Railways" - Penrith to Cockermouth, next week Somerset and Dorset.  Personal taste - not as attractive as Julia Bradbury, but probably not PC for me to say so any more!