You would never call Morfa Mawddach "convenient" but if you were heading for Penmenpool on foot or by bicycle you would definitely go there. The four platforms and doube lines on both routes are long gone and there is now just a short platform with a crude hut on it, rather like Llanbedr further North where the hut disappeared in a storm some years ago!
The station was originally known as Barmouth Junction.
The Mawddach estuary is superb on the odd occasion when it stops raining.
Sorry late to this one as I have been away on vacation but I too have met Mr Portillo, as he was my local MP and it wasn't a good experience.
Along with Steve Norris he is one of the few people where I have been compelled to count my fingers after shaking his hand..
In fact he pissed his constituents off so much that I am not ashamed to say I was one of the many who voted him out of Enfield North and as such put an end to his political career....
And agree he has made a much better travel correspondent than he would have ever made a Prime Minister, which I firmly believe is something he should return to Enfield North and thank us for !!!
Work is the curse of the drinking Class - Oscar Wilde
My dad has stopped watching his TV programs so as former BR staff member there may be something in the opinion of MP that turns people off now.
I've got a theory that all the train interior shots are done on the same train, maybe going up and down the same line on a carriage they've booked out. (The absence of screaming kids is one giveaway; and the horrible Manc that I came across last week who called me a dickhead just because he was sitting in the bicycle space, where I wanted to put my bike.) He's got the script for the whole series, so all he has to do is remember it's the "red jacket, blue trousers" for episode 1, "yellow jacket, green trousers" for 2, etc. Then they drive thje shole production crew to the appropriate station and film him walking along a platform in bright sunshine as a train pulls out. Again, the absence of screaming kids and that annoying cyclist (or the bloke calling him a dickhead) are a giveaway.
The other thing that annoys me (not just Michael Portillo) is when all non-fictional prpogrammes have this fictionalised narrative. I mean when they film at location A, then location B, then location C, then it's "meanwhile back at location A". When you know damn well they've only sent a film crew and reporter to location A one time and one time only. No one has gone "back" there. Now feature writers in the Guardian (and who knows, perhaps other newspapers too) are doing the same. Even if they've done telephone interviews, or just emailed a few friends, and friends of friends, there's always a "meanwhile back at location A". Give us a break!
Come On You Hatters!