Great American Railroad Journeys
Michael Portillo crosses the Atlantic to ride the railroads of America, armed with Appleton's General Guide to the United States.
Genre: Documentary
Cast:Michael Portillo , Elizabeth Welch , David Rambow
S1.E1 ∙ Manhattan: Grand Central to Broadway
Starting at New York's Grand Central Terminal, Michael boards the Manhattan subway system, the busiest rail transit system in the US. He learns about Manhattan's iconic skyscrapers, then heads to the Financial District. In an urban oasis, Michael finds out how a swampy wasteland was turned into one of the largest and finest parks in the world - Central Park. A celebrity welcome from the resting actors of Broadway awaits him at Ellen's Stardust Diner. In the Lower East Side, Michael is drawn into a scrap with one of the neighbourhood's infamous historic gangs. Michael then heads by ferry to Ellis Island, the gateway to America for many millions seeking a new life in the new world. He finishes this leg of his journey with a tour of the gleaming new transport hub under construction close to the site of Ground Zero.
S1.E3 ∙ Brooklyn to Montauk
Michael continues his train ride on Long Island, worthy of its name passing Brooklyn Bridge and by NY underground the Navy Yard military ship building, to Coney Island resort on New York Bay, a cradle of the modern entertainment industry. Record engineering is creating a new eastern terminal station to avoid massive commuting time waste across Manhattan. Alongside is a tycoon's staff model village Garden City. The wealthy built their summer houses or regular palaces first on the God Coast, later in the Hammonds. Long Island ends at Montauk, its lighthouse Land's End.
S1.E4 ∙ New York City to Garrison
Following the Hudson river, national railroad carrier Amtrack goes from NYC's Penn(sylvania) station over Yonkers, after a Dutch manufacturing magnate, trough wild country inspiring major US literature (Washington Irving) and painting, to Garrison, a strategic focus during the Secession War, seat of US Army officers school West Point (also supplying many railroad engineers) and site of commanding crippled general Benedict Arnold's high treason. Since Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid's legendary Great Train robbery, the Scottish Pinkerton agency founder laid the foundations for the present railroad police, now focusing on anti-terrorism.
S1.E5 ∙ Poughkeepsie to Albany
Following the Hudson north, first to to Poughkeepsie, site of a pioneering women's college where Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Meryl Streep graduated. The wild Catskill mountain range, long trapper country, inspired mass nature tourism and Thomas Cole's romantic 'Hudson River' painting school leading it. Finally Albany, state capital of New York and once an industrial metropolis, now grand for its opulent capitol, where Michael ponders the US federal system.
S1.E6 ∙ Schenectady to Rochester
Michael's train heads west 'upstate' to the Great Lakes, roughly along the Erie Canal, jewel in the major transport network before the railroads, which made New York the main East Coast port and immigrant magnet. .He starts in Schenectady, home of General Electric since light bulb inventor Thomas Edison and still a main and innovative supplier, also to rail companies. By Wizzard of Oz author Baum's home town Chittenango Michael reaches Palmyra, where farm-boy Joseph Smith, founded the new 15 million strong Mormon 'church of Laterday Saints'. In Rochester philanthropist George Eastman made his fortune founding the Kodak company, which rendered the camera easy to handle and truly portable.
S1.E7 ∙ Buffalo to Niagara Falls
Michael reaches the north of New York state in its second city, Buffalo at Lake Erie, which the Erie Canal enabled to develop into a major inland port, pivot of a worldwide grain trade, and Industrial central, soon served by a major Railway system. His first Americna rail tour ends at Niagara Falls, US town, once Industrial, completely shifting to tourism.
S1.E8 ∙ Philadelphia to Atlantic City
Pennsylvania state and main city Philadelphia (Greek for 'brothery love') was founded by William Penn, a Quaker aristocrat who abandoned an English luxury life to establish a haven of religious liberty, with the Liberty Bell as symbol, later extended to abolition of slavery. It paid for its Ivy League Penn State University the main nod of US railroads as center of manufacturing. A favorite pastime was visiting the nearby coast at Atlantic city, which grew thanks to the railroads, attracting tourists nationwide, allowing gambling when competition grew.
S1.E9 ∙ Lancaster to Gettysburg
A nearby market-leader remains Hershey, the Pennsylvanian town founded by the self-made founder of 'the' US candy bar firm which introduced milk chocolate outside Switzerland. The milk comes from the wide traditionalist countryside of the Pennsylvania Dutch: Amish, Mennonites and Brethren, Anabaptists fleeing persecution from Switzerland, Germania, Low Countries and Scandinavia. Michael ends in Gettysburg, site of the turn-point battle in the Secession War and Lincoln's Address.
S1.E14 ∙ Manassas to Richmond
Michael leaves federal capital Washington to Richmond, capital if senior state Virginia and of the Confederation. First stop is Manassas, an old rail road crossing, which helps to explain it was the site of two major civil war battles, both won by the Confederate general Robert Lee. Next Fredericksburg, for a taste of bourbon after an elaborate visit to a distillery of the Kentucky-created corn-based US version of whiskey. Finally Richmond, the fall of which spelled the defeat of the Dixieland secession but not of structural racial inequality. Michael attends a cotillion class, a 'European' tradition and a refined way to prepare youths to social life.
S2.E1 ∙ St Louis, Missouri
Michael presents his second American rail route using the Appleton's guide, this time along a great axis of the pioneers follow-up west of the Appalachians, across the great barrier stream Mississippi. For long, the main city westward apart from Chicago was its central port Saint Louis, the Western metropolis supplying cowboy country. It prospered, growing into a real great city, flouting old and new monuments, including the 1874 engineering pioneer bridge named after US architect Eads and iconic arch which has a train inside instead of a lift.
S2.E2 ∙ St Louis to Jefferson City, Missouri
Documentary- Michael Portillo visits The gateway Arch in St. Louis, replica of the original keel boat used for historic expedition, we see corn pipes made in Washington, MO, and a fortified building that was the jail for the entire Wild West. He visits Hermann, MO and wineries and we hear how the outbreak of WW2 practically killed off the German language in the area, but many people have German heritage.
S2.E5 ∙ Lawrence to Topeka, Kansas
Michael is in Lawrence, a fast-grown city in the Bleeding Kansas era of pioneers establishing a territory of Kansas and claiming statehood during the the slavery conflict escalating into the Civil war of Secession. Its home to a rare Indian school -founded to gruesomely assimilate natives from tribes from many states- turned college, where he enjoys an Indian prairie grouse dance in 'full regalia', and the proud birthplace of regulation basketball at Kansas University. A private tourist line keeps the steam train experience alive.
S3.E3 ∙ Plymouth to Nantucket
Michael travels from Plymouth to New London and uses historic rail. He traces the steps of the Pilgrim Fathers in Plymouth, Mass; we see how indigenous tribes of the Wampanoag people taught settlers to live off the land; he boards the Cape Cod Central Railroad, bound for Hyannis and then takes the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, where several presidents have holiday homes. Y
S3.E5 ∙ New Haven to Mount Washington
New Haven to Plattsburgh A rail journey through Connecticut and New England; rowing in New Haven, Conn.; the world's first mountain climbing cog railway; the logging industry in Vermont; the Olympic bobsleigh run in Lake Placid, N.Y.
S3.E12 ∙ Sacramento to Napa Valley
Reno to Napa Valley, over the Sierra Mountain range in Nevada and Lake Tahoe ; Michael meets experts in their field about how the west was opened by rail and due to the gold and silver mining.
S3.E17 ∙ Monterey to Santa Barbara
Actually in this same show Michael travels on to Los Angeles also. He travels on the Coast Starlight rail service, he visits the historic port of Monterey, Warner Bros studio, and explores a rail link with 7 new stations on the LA Metro that was started in 2015 and expected finish date is 2024.
S3.E19 ∙ Los Angeles to Laguna Beach
Michael Portillo travels by rail and visits the orange groves of Riverside; he learns how to make California rolls with a chef; he tries his hand at Plein Air painting in Laguna Beach and attends celebrations for Mexican Independence Day.
