More Scenic Railway Routes

Telly Today higlights for Friday, May 28th.

Unreported World

The Channel 4 investigative series goes undercover to confront a suspected tiger dealer and track down Thailand’s tiger kingpins, who have made millions from a sinister and sometimes deadly trade.

Reporter Jonathan Miller is on the front line of the battle to save Thailand’s wild tigers from poachers and smugglers. He travels to the last safe haven of the near-extinct Indochinese tiger, and meets the rangers and conservationists fighting to protect the endangered tiger.

Thai wildlife enforcement agencies are determined to crack down on the illegal trade in both live and dead tigers. But they are struggling against a lucrative and murky industry that supplies an insatiable demand from Vietnam and China for trophies and quack medicine.

Unreported World, Channel 4, 7.30 pm

This Time

It’s the fifth edition of the series that makes The One Show seem like it might be worth watching.

In tonight’s latest escapades Alan Partridge – a mixture seemingly of Terry Wogan, Richard Madeley and David Icke – takes to the skies with a flight in a spitfire, while co-host Jennie Gresham comes face to face with her online troll. New band Cayman perform live.

It’s the One show to watch…

This Time, BBC One, 9.30 pm

The World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys

All aboard for some of the most unforgettable train rides through some of the most spectacular scenery on Earth. Bill Nighy narrates this visually stunning documentary series, telling the stories of beautiful train journeys through the people who travel, work and live along the rail routes.

There’s no better or more breath-taking perspective on the world than from the window of a railway carriage as it rolls through landscapes of stunning scenery and fascinating history.

In the third episode of the series, Channel 5 takes the train from Bergen to Oslo – coast to coast – through the extraordinary mountains of southern Norway in winter. This super-fast train travels daily to the country’s capital, and the first stop is Dale – a place where Norway’s most famous knitters design and knit the country’s famous jumpers and who, for every Olympics, knit a new design for the country’s winter team.

Back on our mainline train, the show heads to Finse, a small settlement where the railway travels high across a great Arctic plateau. It has a frozen lake that’s perfect for kite skiing, and also hear about its history. Finse was where Shackleton and Edmundson came to train and also where the Germans came in World War II to test their Arctic gear.

Then its a south-east route through the forest wildernesses around Flå, a site famous for its ancient woodland and bears. There are only 130 left in the wild, but a local conservation park rescues them and promotes Norway’s positive conservation laws.

The final stop is Sandvika, where Monet visited one winter and painted around 30 scenes. After seven hours and 15 minutes, Channel 5 reach their last destination – Oslo. A great city by the sea, we explore its 1,000-year-old history, its past and present in its harbour area.

World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys: Norway, Channel 5, 9 pm