For Chris Tarrant, travelling by train is the best possible way to explore a country, meet the real people and unlock its culture and history. In the fourth series of Extreme Railways, Chris heads east from Morocco venturing into the Sahara to find out whether a railway once went all the way to Timbuktu; he also crosses three former Soviet republics by rail in just one week; explores five Balkan countries; and finally follows the route of the Hejaz Railway up through Jordan before crossing the border into Israel.

Morocco
Chris Tarrant travels to Morocco to explore the vast railway network built in the French colonial era to connect the country with France’s other African Colonies. After travelling the length of the country from West to East, Chris heads for the desert. He’s on a mission to find out whether a legendary railway right across the desert to Timbuktu was ever actually constructed, or if it was just a pipe-dream that will leave him stranded in the middle of the Sahara. It’s the height of summer, and temperatures are hot enough to melt Chris’s shoes (well, one of them, anyway), but nothing will stop Tarrant as he embarks on another railway quest!

Baltics
Chris Tarrant is on a mission to cross three former Soviet republics entirely by rail in just one week. Caught between the rock of Europe and the hard place of Russia, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have been invaded more times than Chris has had hot dinners. As he struggles to navigate railways that have been ripped up and replaced through endless foreign occupations, Chris uncovers some amazing stories of resilience and independent spirit as well as some dark secrets from the region’s war-torn past.

Balkans
In this episode, Chris explores five countries of former Yugoslavia. As a communist federation under Marshal Tito, this country had an extensive state-run railway network, but with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the Balkan Wars of Independence that followed, much of it was destroyed or fell into disuse. Chris attempts to cross five countries in just six days to find out how their railway networks are faring today, and he goes in search of Tito’s famous Blue Train before riding one of the great railways of the world down to the coast of Montenegro.

Jordan & Israel
Chris Tarrant journeys to the Middle East to explore what remains of the colonial railways that were built there a hundred years ago. From the deserts of Lawrence of Arabia, Chris follows the route of the Hejaz Railway up through Jordan, before crossing the border into Israel. In the Holy Land, he’s headed for the holiest city of all – Jerusalem, but this voyage through one of the world’s most unstable regions is not quite what Chris expects…