Great American Railroad Journeys: Series 3

A companion to the phenomenally successful Great British Railway Journeys, this series sees Michael Portillo swap his treasured copy of Bradshaw's handbook for its stateside counterpart an 1879 edition of Appleton's General Guide to the United States and Canada.

This four-DVD set features twenty episodes covering two different journeys:

Boston, Massachusetts, to Toronto, Ontario
Reno, Nevada, to San Diego, California

Michael's first epic rail journey takes him a thousand miles from leafy New England over mountain ranges to the Great Lakes. He discovers how a revolution fanning out from Boston, Massachusetts, overthrew the Crown and brought in an independent United States of America; while in Canada, nearly two and half centuries later, the head of state is still the British monarch.

Next, he travels a thousand miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains south along the coast of California towards the Mexican border to tell the story of a state that has transformed the world, from gold and silver to Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

Along the way he encounters revolutionaries and feminists, pilgrims and witches and rides some of the oldest and most breathtaking railroads in the world. He discovers gold and silver, movies and microchips, oranges and oil, and learns how America's most famous railroad conquered the wild landscapes of the west.