Michael Portillo takes another train trip.

Former British Conservative politician Michael Portillo has switched from toeing the party line to making shows about railway lines. Peter Eley reports.

British Cabinet minister Michael Portillo’s spectacular defeat in the 1997 election gave rise to the term ‘Portillo moment’, meaning a seismic shift in politics.

Two decades on, he is a former politician who has carved out another career, as a media personality and presenter of documentaries, around 20 of them featuring railway journeys.

The latest one, the six-part Great Australian Railway Journeys, screening on the Living Channel, gave rise to another ‘Portillo moment’ and a much more pleasant one for him.

Portillo’s trademark colourful clothes, such as a bright pink jacket, red trousers and bright green or blue shirts, have become something of his TV trademark – “a running gag” as he describes it.

The first episode in the latest series features The Ghan, a luxury journey from Adelaide to Darwin.

At one point, Portillo meets a group of women who, amazingly, tell him that their husbands are on board having a reunion – and are all dressed up as him.

“By chance, I come across this group of people on The Ghan who have made this effort to dress like me, with greater or lesser success, and I award a prize to who has come closest to the original item. That was a real Portillo moment.”

Portillo served as a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government, and was Defence Secretary under her successor, John Major. He held leadership aspirations, too, and unsuccessfully challenged for the Conservative party leadership in 2001.

So which part of his career has he enjoyed the most?

“This one and that one,” he says. “I’ve been unusually lucky. I enjoyed politics very much but it was very stressful. What I do now is just an