Radio 3 celebrates the 200th anniversary of the modern railway with an all-day broadcast from the Highland Chieftain Train from Inverness to London
Radio 3's Train Tracks includes a whole-day broadcast and five live programmes across the country
Published: 09:08 am, 8 September 2025
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
