Radio 3 celebrates the 200th anniversary of the modern railway with an all-day broadcast from the Highland Chieftain Train from Inverness to London, received 2025 09 08

[Colin Howard]

Greetings,

I doubt I'll commit from 07:30 until 17:00 to recording the whole sequence,
I'll certainly dip in and may take some segments, largely depending on how
it is shown in the R3 listings.

Certainly sounds an interesting broadcast and hope it lives up to
expectations.

If anybody does listen I would love to hear what you make of the sequence
and which parts you hear and how you received it.

Yes, it should be available on BBC Sounds, but in what form? One long
broadcast or broken up into segments?

This September, BBC Radio 3 broadcasts from a train for an entire day, as
the network marks the 200th anniversary of the modern railway with Train
Tracks, including five live programmes across the country.

Throughout the day, Petroc Trelawny presents from London North Eastern
Railway (LNER)'s Highland Chieftain train travelling from Inverness to
London, on the Highland and East Coast Main Lines.

As the first ever passenger train reached Stockton from Shildon, via
Darlington, on 27 September 1825, Train Tracks celebrates this milestone
with live programmes from five railway stations on the Highland and East
Coast Main Lines. Petroc is in Inverness before boarding the 7.55am Highland
Chieftain, Tom Service is in Pitlochry, Tom McKinney at Edinburgh Waverley,
Elizabeth Alker in Darlington and Georgia Mann at London's King's Cross,
where the journey terminates.

Greeting Petroc as his train stops by on its journey south, musicians and
contributors join the live broadcasts at the stations to perform, discuss
railway-related topics and comment on the history and culture of the places
visited. Amongst the special guests appearing live, Alan Cumming is at
Pitlochry station to discuss the birth and history of the Pitlochry Festival
Theatre - where he is Artistic Director; at Edinburgh Waverley, pianist,
dramatist and composer Neil Brand performs film music inspired by trains and
railways; and at Inverness and King's Cross, composers Erland Cooper and
Jasper Dommett present their two brand new commissions, specially recorded
by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra:

Cooper's Unfolding Landscapes and Dommett's All Change! The live broadcasts
and on-board updates are interspersed with a specially curated
railway-themed soundtrack including music inspired by trains as well as
archive recordings of the sounds of locomotives from the 1950s onwards. The
day also features interviews with a range of special contributors.

Sam Jackson, Controller BBC Radio 3, says: "We are thrilled to be marking
this key milestone in the history of humankind, with an ambitious and
unprecedented day of live broadcasting.

Radio 3 will literally be travelling across the UK, very much a first in our
history! as we take listeners on a journey from Inverness to London,
exploring how the theme of train travel has inspired composers through the
last two centuries."

On Friday 26 September, BBC Radio 3's drivetime programme In Tune with
Petroc Trelawny will also be live from Inverness. Broadcasting from the
iconic, more than 160-year-old Royal Highland Hotel, located right next to
Inverness train station, the programme will feature live music from local
folk musicians Julie Fowlis (vocals), Eamon Doorley (guitar), Duncan
Chisholm (fiddle) and Ingrid Henderson (harp), the massed voices of local
Gaelic Choirs and harpist Karen Marshalsay and her three types of Scottish
harp.

BBC Radio 3 Train Tracks is live on Saturday 27 September from 7.30am to 5pm
and available on BBC Sounds.

Train Tracks is part of Railway200 and is a co-production with Tandem
Productions.

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2025/radio-3-train-tracks

Colin Howard, Southern England.

[ano...@ntlworld.com]

Thanks for sharing colin,

This sounds like a great listen and I plan to listen to most of it and as it's on a Saturday, this shouldn't be too much of a problem for me.

Let's hope that when the presenter introduces a piece of music which is beings played in the studio, that whoever is playing the music, plays the right track LOL.

Also, whilst I could listen to this on my radio, given it's about railways, I think I'll be listening on-line LOL.

Paul.

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