Great Western Coffee Shop

Just noticed this on BBC4. Should be on iplayer for next 7 days:

"In a moving and often funny documentary, award-winning filmmaker Sean Langan is off to East Africa to ride the rails of the Tazara railroad, whose passenger and goods trains travel through spectacular scenery and a game park teeming with wild animals.

The railway was built by the Chinese just after independence to link Zambia's copper belt to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, and once carried the region's hopes and dreams. But now it is in crisis. Every day there are derailments, trains running out of fuel and mechanical breakdowns.

Langan meets the train crews, controllers and maintenance crews who battle to keep it going - and at Tazara HQ he is on the track of Tazara's elusive Chinese railway advisors to find out why it is in such a parlous state."

Sadly, not available on BBC iPlayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s6bgw), but will be repeated on BBC Four on Thursday at midnight and Saturday at 19:00.

Watched it - was more an african heart throb story than anything to do with the railways

Oh, ye of little faith.  ;D

Happily, is now available on iplayer (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s6bgw/African_Railway/).

Not unusually, and rather similar to to the rail industry, one bit of the BBC doesn't know what another bit is doing.