Walking Britain's Lost Railways

Sep 21, 2018

Rob Bell seeks out the lost railway from Elgin to Portsoy, a line which served the fishing and whisky industries so vital to the local communities. The track bed to the 'Scottish Riviera' of Lossiemouth once saw sherry barrels aplenty and vast quantities of fish along its surprisingly straight route - the picturesque docks still betray the presence of steel track right up to the water's edge. Rob is helped in detecting the line by local ramblers, but he's quite unprepared for the sight that awaits him: the magnificent Spey Bridge. Salmon fills the river here and once ...

Sep 28, 2018

Rob starts his journey in the famous steel town of Sheffield, where he’ll be following the old Woodhead Line, through the Pennines, to the industrial powerhouse of Manchester. This film is about human endeavour against all the odds, building, and running a railway through one of the most inhospitable parts of the country.

Oct 5, 2018

Rob’s journey through Dartmoor from Plymouth to Exeter begins in unlikely surrounds: in the garage of model railway enthusiast Bruce Hunt. Bruce has meticulously recreated the beginning of this line in miniature, including a model of Rob himself, and explains how to trace the now lost line through the dense overgrowth which has emerged since its closure.

Oct 12, 2018

This is the story of a freight line, built to traverse the tricky landscape of the Lake District to transport minerals from the many Cumberland mines, but which later was embraced by tourists eager to explore the spectacular countryside. Rob begins his journey in Penrith Station, where he?s advised that the lost line begins over the busy motorway between a fence and a walking track - not an easy route to find.

Oct 19, 2018

The story of the Somerset and Dorset line is one of investors, certain of the wealth they would generate, overcoming tremendous difficulties to build the line, only to find the landscape too punishing to avoid financial ruin.

Oct 26, 2018

Rob Bell visits Wales to examine the story of a lost line between Ruabon and Barmouth. The route represented a sea-change in how ordinary Victorian working families were granted affordable access to the landscape and language of the Welsh heartlands. He takes a trip across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - the oldest and longest navigable aqueduct in Great Britain and the highest in the world - and goes canoeing in Lake Bala. In Dolgellau, Rob meets a local harpist and hears the sounds that became intrinsically tied to the image of Wales.

Feb 9, 2020

Rob Bell explores more abandoned rail routes, beginning with one that cut an outrageous path through the dramatic hills and gorges of the Peak District - part of the 1860s express route between London and Manchester. From Matlock to the spa town splendour of Buxton, Rob unearths a tale of Victorian ambition, as he travels along a route filled with great engineering, which is now a beloved part of the Peak District National Park.

Feb 16, 2020

Rob Bell heads to the industrial heartlands of north-east England, beginning on Wearside, where he learns about the world's first railway designed for steam locomotives. Rob also visits the ‘living' museum at Beamish and rides a railway from George Stephenson's day, following an old line into Hartlepool, where a medieval port was turned into a mega-centre of coal, rail and shipping in just one generation.

Apr 3, 2020

Rob travels to Bangor in North Wales, where he explores a lost line that was built in 1801 to transport Welsh slate from the local quarry, which once was the largest in the world, and now provides the backdrop for the world's fastest zip line. He also follows the Victorian railway inland to Llanberis, where tourists still flock to ride a special train to the summit of Snowdon, and discovers why the heirs to the throne have been styled ‘Prince of Wales' for seven centuries.

Apr 10, 2020

Until it closed in 1966 the Deeside Railway followed the River Dee upstream from Aberdeen into what is now the Cairngorms National Park. As luck would have it, Queen Victoria purchased Balmora just as the line was set to open, giving the route prestige. Rob Bell retraces the route, visiting a shooting estate, tossing a caber and finding an unmistakable Highland `brand" that all owe their existence to this royal railway age. He also explores a quiet valley of cattle farming and timber sawmills, and, in truth, a simple railway that struggled for decades to justify its own existence, despite its royal veneer.

Apr 17, 2020

Rob Bell heads to Norfolk to follow a lost railway through some of the quietest - yet wealthiest - parts of the country. This railway was a curious latecomer when it was built in the 1880s and it threatened to rudely thrust the region into the industrial age. Rob explores an entire engineering town built from scratch, learns how Norfolk's agriculture was super-charged, and sees for himself where thousands of holidaying Midlanders arrived to sail the Norfolk Broads. The line put Norfolk on the frontline of the war so Rob takes to the skies to spot dozens of hastily constructed airfields.

Apr 24, 2020

Rob Bell explores the Waverley Route, which ran south from Edinburgh for 100 miles through the Scottish Borders to Carlisle, connecting with what is now known as the West Coast Main Line. After years of campaigning, the first stage of Rob's journey is aboard the new Borders Railway, the longest railway to open in over a century. It follows part of the old Waverley Route, making fine use of the 170-year-old, 23-arch Newbattle Viaduct. Rob also pays a visit to one of Hawick's surviving cashmere factories and discovers a First World War prisoner of war camp served by the railway.

Nov 27, 2020

Rob Bell discovers the now-abandoned lines that unlocked the wild coastline of north Devon. He begins by following the dramatic Barnstaple and Ilfracombe Railway, which once built, proved an instant success, eventually carrying the glamorous Atlantic Coast Express service, direct from London Waterloo. He crosses to the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway, which traverses the wild terrain of Exmoor up to the cliff-top village of Lynton. Rob follows the adventurous, narrow-gauge route, discovering the extraordinary tale of the line's construction and the very short section that has been fully restored.

Dec 4, 2020

Rob follows an epic 70-mile route along the glorious west coast of Scotland on the Callander and Oban line. Along the route he discovers an underground power station.

Dec 11, 2020

Starting out from the Regency splendour of Cheltenham, Rob Bell crosses the Cotswolds, following the 46-mile route of the Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway. The line passes many quarries, all producing the famous Cotswold stone - some now abandoned and some still supplying stone to sites like Hampton Court. With numerous hills to negotiate, this railway was never an express route, but it did open up this landscape to visitors for the first time. From the late 1800s, tourists piled in by rail to explore picture postcard villages like Bourton-on-the-Water, establishing a new local `industry".

Dec 18, 2020

Rob Bell follows traces the course of the Great Central Railway, the final great line of the Victorian era and the last main line built before the Channel Tunnel rail link more than a century later. Starting near Nottingham, Rob is taken aback by the scale of demolition and excavation needed to build this line through the city. Around Loughborough, Rob catches up with the major project that is now rebuilding bridges and 500 yards of track in order to link two heritage lines and restore a 20-mile section of the old route. He also visits Leicester Central station - once derelict but now set for a new life as a bowling alley.

Oct 15, 2021

Rob is in Yorkshire on the trail of a man once known as the ‘Railway King’. George Hudson rose from farming origins to become Lord Mayor of York.

Oct 22, 2021

Rob explores the copper mining that once dominated Cornwall, following the first two railways as he discovers how the deep mines prompted the invention of the steam engine.

Oct 29, 2021

Rob checks out a railway line in rural Kent that became extremely prominent during the world wars, The Elham Valley Railway, which once connected Folkestone to Canterbury.

Nov 19, 2021

Rob explores the lost railways of Northern Ireland - and there are many to choose from. Northern Island is only a little larger than the counties of Yorkshire.