Highland Chieftain journey from Inverness to London King’s Cross to be taken by BBC Radio 3 crew as they broadcast live for a special event marking 200 years of UK railway
A special live radio broadcast marking 200 years of the UK railway will be aired from the Highland Chieftain as it travels from Inverness to London.
BBC Radio 3 will be marking the milestone this Saturday with Train Tracks, including five live programmes across the country.
Throughout the day, Petroc Trelawny presents from LNER’s Highland Chieftain train travelling from Inverness to King’s Cross.
As the first ever passenger train reached Stockton from Shildon, via Darlington, on September 27, 1825, Train Tracks will be celebrating this milestone with live programmes from five railway stations on the Highland and East Coast Main Lines.
As well as broadcasting at Inverness before boarding LNER’s 7.55am Inverness to London train, Petroc will be meeting others on the way, including Tom Service is in Pitlochry, Tom McKinney at Edinburgh Waverley, Elizabeth Alker in Darlington, and Georgia Mann at London’s King’s Cross.
Greeting Petroc as his train stops by on its journey south, musicians and contributors will also 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 will be 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 of BBC Radio 3, said: “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.”
The day before the special journey, Radio 3’s Friday drivetime programme, In Tune with Petroc Trelawny, will also be live from Inverness. Broadcasting from the Royal Highland Hotel at Inverness 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, September 27 from 7.30am to 5pm and available on BBC Sounds.
Train Tracks is part of Railway200 and is a co-production with Tandem Productions.