Great American Railroad Journeys

[gavin]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this apologies if so but the BBC has ordered 15 x 30-minute series of Great American Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo

No word as yet when it will air

http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/in-brief-boundless-twofour-videology/5090740.article

 

[tony6499]

Sounds good, plenty of mileage to discover there

 

[gavin]

The 3 week series gets underway on Monday at 18:30 on BBC 2

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zzfy5

 

[me123]

First week looks interesting. I'll certainly be watching.

1) Grand Central to Broadway (possibly the shortest journey he's done, although I'm sure it'll be more than a trip on the Shuttle).
2) Lower East Side to World Trade Center ("Michael Portillo continues his American journey in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where he narrowly avoids a scrap with an historic gang of New York..." hock: )
3) Brooklyn to Montauk
4) New York City to Garrison
5) Poughkeepsie to Albany

Seems to be in an odd order, though. It'd have been more logical to start at Montauk, two days in Manhattan, then head up to Albany. If you actually do this trip in this way, you'd have to get back from Montauk to NYC.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Must admit I wish they would show these once a week over a longer period.

 

[Greenback]

I enjoy these series and I;m looking forward to this one. I hope it's followed by Great Australian Railway Journeys, Great Japanese Railway Journeys and so on!

 

[NY Yankee]

First week looks interesting. I'll certainly be watching.

1) Grand Central to Broadway (possibly the shortest journey he's done, although I'm sure it'll be more than a trip on the Shuttle).
2) Lower East Side to World Trade Center ("Michael Portillo continues his American journey in Manhattan's Lower East Side, where he narrowly avoids a scrap with an historic gang of New York..." hock: )
3) Brooklyn to Montauk
4) New York City to Garrison
5) Poughkeepsie to Albany

Seems to be in an odd order, though. It'd have been more logical to start at Montauk, two days in Manhattan, then head up to Albany. If you actually do this trip in this way, you'd have to get back from Montauk to NYC.

2) I can walk from the Lower East Side to World Trade Center. If you want to take the train, take the F train to West 4th Street and then transfer to the downtown E train

3) The Hamptons and Montauk are primarily a vacation destination. Since it's so far from the New York City central business district, few people commute from the Hamptons and Montauk to the city. During the summer, the LIRR operates a train called the Cannonball. It runs express from Penn Station straight to the Hamptons and Montauk. It is a double decker train pulled by a diesel-electric locomotive. They serve drinks and snacks on the train. The train is so crowded that some people sit in the aisles and vestibules.

http://web.mta.info/lirr/hamptons/reserveservice.htm

http://gothamist.com/2015/08/22/new_lirr_cannonball_rules_try_to_ma.php

4) You can travel from majestic Grand Central Terminal to Garrison on Metro-North. It is a very scenic route along the Hudson River. The travel time is about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/showpix?nsta=140184

5) This can be done on Amtrak.

 

[IanD]

Must admit I wish they would show these once a week over a longer period.

Record them and then watch them one per week.

 

[AM9]

... Seems to be in an odd order, though. It'd have been more logical to start at Montauk, two days in Manhattan, then head up to Albany. If you actually do this trip in this way, you'd have to get back from Montauk to NYC.

The programmes are shot in completely different ways to their brodcast sequence.
Knowing somebody who once discussed this issue with Portillo whom he chatted with on board Eurostar, the story lines are created in completely separate timeframes to the broadcast of the programme.
A typical order of events at locations might be for a team of researchers to arrive to line up the interviewees, maybe followed by a film crew to shoot some establishing shots and footage for voiceovers. Then the railway linking shots would be shot when convenient at various locations including any aerial pieces. Finally Portillo would turn up to read scripted lines to camera and with the interviewees. He would also do his 'walk-bys' wearing shirts/trousers/jackets in the colour of the day (note that he never carries luggage other than his copy of Bradshaws). All of the location work will be done in the most time/resource-efficient order for the whole journey, i.e. embracing several segments.
The rest including scripted voice-over pieces are all assembled in post-production. Not as exciting as some might imagine but the end result is generally convincing enough to all but the most anal of viewers.

 

[me123]

Yeah, I kind of worked that one out for myself.

However, the point I was making was that the "journey" isn't linear. He has to go out to the edge of Long Island, then all the way back to NYC. Starting at Montauk would have made a more coherent journey without the unnecessary doubling back, although of course it wouldn't have necessarily been filmed in that order.

 

[pemma]

So how long before Appletons' General Guide to the United States and Canada gets reprinted?

His first journey started in New York and will end at Niagara Falls and is split over 7 episodes.

 

[Bletchleyite]

note that he never carries luggage other than his copy of Bradshaws

He is sometimes seen with an airline hand luggage sized trolley case, but normally only in shots involving hotels.

 

[pemma]

(note that he never carries luggage other than his copy of Bradshaws).

Someone wrote to Radio Times about that quite a while back and their response was there's production vehicles which travel by road and the things Portillo doesn't need when on the train get loaded on to one of the road vehicles.

When he filmed in Knutsford someone saw a female assistant alighting the train with Portillo who carried Portillo's hand baggage for him.

 

[me123]

^ Fair enough, he obviously has to get the entire crew and their equipment around and it's simply not practical for all of them to be on the rails all the time!

Just watched last nights inaugural episode, which was quite interesting, although two days in Manhattan will barely scratch the surface! Looking forward to the next episodes, particularly towards the end of the week as he heads upstate (I've never been).

 

[tony6499]

Does he end up going anywhere but the NE region of the states ? Or will this become another long running series where he covers everywhere in the fullness of time ?

 

[Clip]

Enjoyed that last night. ^^ Im sure he will cover most of the states where possible and where the book takes him.

 

[pemma]

and where the book takes him.

It looked a very slim book for a US and Canada guide considering the size of the countries combined.

 

[plcd1]

3) The Hamptons and Montauk are primarily a vacation destination. Since it's so far from the New York City central business district, few people commute from the Hamptons and Montauk to the city. During the summer, the LIRR operates a train called the Cannonball. It runs express from Penn Station straight to the Hamptons and Montauk. It is a double decker train pulled by a diesel-electric locomotive. They serve drinks and snacks on the train. The train is so crowded that some people sit in the aisles and vestibules.

http://web.mta.info/lirr/hamptons/reserveservice.htm

http://gothamist.com/2015/08/22/new_lirr_cannonball_rules_try_to_ma.php

The boarding video for the Cannonball train is just mad. Never seen anything quite like that.

One other question if I may. I watched a video of LIRR peak trains at Mineola. Is the service really *so* peaked that both tracks are worked in the peak direction only with fasts on one line and stoppers / semi fasts on the other? That surprised me. I've only used LIRR once but had no sense that it ran like that.

 

[Bungle73]

So how long before Appletons' General Guide to the United States and Canada gets reprinted?

I wouldn't be surprised if Old House are working on that right now.

 

[Clip]

It looked a very slim book for a US and Canada guide considering the size of the countries combined.

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008870894

Thats it in digital I think if you want to have a looksy.

ETA : though im guessing they were not as large nor as densely populated as they both are now.

 

[me123]

I'm currently watching Portillo try to dance in Episode 3

Enjoying the series so far. I'll take back what I said about Montauk being a strange diversion - it's certainly geographically out of the way, but in terms of the content it fits in perfectly.

 

[Cletus]

Will he pick his feet in Poughkeepsie?

 

[kevin5025]

Last night's was pretty good. Lots of great scenery along the Hudson river valley, and for us enthusiasts there were good shots of Amtrak, and an extensive interview with Amtrak police, including with the the Chief of Police. Also some discussion of the old Penn station in New York.

 

[duncanp]

One thing I noticed was that he departed for Tarrytown from Penn Station.

Tarrytown is served by Metro North trains from Grand Central.

Just wondering why Michael would choose to depart from Penn Station, and where he would change en route.

 

[me123]

Yeah, that annoyed me a bit. There is no direct train from Penn Station to Tarrytown. He could change at Yonkers (or Croton-Harmon and double back).

 

[Mikey C]

Surprised that it's not been done in the same way as the British ones with one "journey a week"
It looks like he reaches Niagara on Tuesday!

 

[Phil.]

One thing I noticed was that he departed for Tarrytown from Penn Station.

Tarrytown is served by Metro North trains from Grand Central.

Just wondering why Michael would choose to depart from Penn Station, and where he would change en route.

To show you Penn Central station.

 

[pemma]

A scanned copy of part 1 of the book from the University of Iowa library has been made available: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858034475446;view=1up;seq=29

And a scanned copy of part 2 of the book from the University of California library has been made available: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b534256;view=1up;seq=27

 

[philabos]

That's Pennsylvania Station.
Nobody wants to remember Penn Central.