In an exciting start to 2016, the Churnet Valley Railway (CVR) has announced that the railway is to play a prominent role in a hit BBC series this week.
The seventh series of Michael Portillo’s popular “Great British Railway Journeys” is to be aired on BBC2 over the forthcoming week, with the episode on Friday 8th seeing Michael travel from Ashley to Alton Towers.
His journey sees him call in to the CVR where he is able to experience life on the footplate of resident TKH no. 2944 “Hotspur”.
Great British Railway Journeys is a travel documentary following the Victorian Guidebook “Bradshaw’s Descriptive Railway Hand-book of Great Britain and Ireland” that was written by George Bradshaw in 1863.
Former MP Michael Portillo follows some of the routes described in this book, visiting some of Bradshaws recommended points of interest in order to see how they and the destinations themselves have changed over the last Century and a half.
Michael and the crew spent a day on the CVR last summer, filming scenes up and down the valley as he joined the footplate crew and had a go himself at firing “Hotspur”.
