Extreme Railway Journeys

Rating:3.4 of 5Total number of episodes:13Last broadcast:20/09/2017 at 10:30
September 2017
45:12

Season 1 Episode 3 - India's Monsoon Railway

4.0 9 x
Chris Tarrant is travelling on the Konkan railway which runs down the west coast of India connecting the port cities of Mumbai and Mangalore. Although the British Empire built 40,000 miles of track across this vast sub-continent between, they stayed clear of this narrow, boggy strip of land as it was such a treacherous and difficult environment in which to build a railway. As a result Western India remained undeveloped until over 100 years later when a brave Indian engineer took on the daunting...
45:13

Season 1 Episode 1 - Congo's Jungle Railway

Expired 4.0 13 x
Television presenter Chris Tarrant travels around the world to ride some of the most extreme railways that wind their way through some of the harshest terrain on Earth. Chris is in West Africa to experience one of the greatest surviving African railways of the colonial era. Built by French colonists at a cost of tens of thousands of African lives, this railway connects the capital, Brazzaville, far inland on the Congo River, to the coast 310 miles away. It has remained a vital lifeline for both...
44:03

Season 1 Episode 2 - Australia's Outback Railway

Expired 3.0 21 x
Chris Tarrant crosses the Australian Outback to find out the truth about an amazing railway. The 3,000 kilometre-long Adelaide to Darwin Railway is commonly known as “The Ghan Line”. It‘s named after the luxury passenger service that runs on it and the name "Ghan" is said to derive from the Afghan-run camel trains that ferried people and goods across the Outback in the 19th Century.
July 2017
44:05

July 12, 2017

Expired 4.0 19 x
Chris Tarrant travels almost 3,000 kilometres across Scandinavia and Finland in the middle of winter, braving deep snow, sub-zero temperatures and hardly any light. He’s on a mission to find out how war, iron ore and a certain Lapland living red suited gentlemen inspired the Scandinavians to build an extreme railway network that operates deep into the Arctic Circle 365 days a year.
44:05

July 5, 2017

Expired 3.0 19 x
Chris travels the length if the historic Trans- Caucasus Railway. He starts his journey in Baku on the shores of the Caspian and travels to the port of Batumi on the Black Sea. He learns that the railway was built in the days of the Russian Empire and has been used to ship oil across the Black Sea. During his travels, he visits an abandoned pumping house, stops by an unusual spa in Georgia and stops by the birthplace of Joseph Stalin.
June 2017
44:00

Season 3 Episode 3 - The Diamond Railway

Expired 4.0 14 x
Chris Tarrant travels from Cape Town in South Africa across Botswana to the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, following the route of a mind-bogglingly ambitious railway pioneered by controversial 19th century British Colonialist, Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes made a fortune from diamonds and used it to fund his railway and extend British rule across Africa, laying the foundations for apartheid in the process. Chris wants to discover if this railway built to further the interests of a white minority is still r...
44:05

Season 3 Episode 2 - Night Train To Patagonia

Expired 4.0 24 x
Chris Tarrant travels by train across a thousand-mile stretch of Argentina to the heart of Patagonia. In the heyday of its “Belle Epoque” this country boasted one of the largest and finest railways in the world, largely funded and built by the British. As he heads further and further South in his quest to ride the iconic Old Patagonian Express, Chris finds out just how far this once great railway network has fallen.
43:59

Season 3 Episode 1 - Ice Train To Nowhere

Expired 3.0 14 x
Chris Tarrant returns for more train journeys through some of the world's most challenging terrain. He heads to the Arctic for a trip along the Alaska Railroad, but as he arrives in the port of Seward, it's not a great start as there are no trains running, so he ends up hitching a ride with a track inspector's car. He continues his journey on a freight train heading for Anchorage, Alaska's biggest city, and finally heads north on the Aurora passenger train to the town of Healy. Along the way he...
December 2015
44:00

S2 Ep6 - The Railway That Created Canada

Expired 3.0 54 x
The Railway That Created Canada - This week Chris Tarrant discovers how a two and a half thousand mile transcontinental railway was built against huge odds in just a few decades and turned a vast wilderness of isolated communities into the country we now know as Canada. Along the way, Chris drops a few bombs, searches for Winnie the Pooh, crosses raging rivers and explores one of the world’s most formidable mountain ranges and the amazing engineering achievements that conquered them. (Final)(S....
44:57

S2 Ep4 - Slow Train To Guantanamo Bay

Expired 3.0 103 x
Slow Train To Guantanamo Bay - This series sees Chris Tarrant explores the world's most extreme railway lines. This episode, Chris attempts to cross the length of Cuba, the only island in the Caribbean to boast an extensive railway network, from Havana in the west to the far east of the island. (S.2,Ep.4) (From the UK) (Documentary) G CC
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