British comedian Griff Rhys Jones will take viewers on a journey through Australia's scenic rail routes in a new six-part documentary series.

Key points: Focuses on four railways

Focuses on four railways Griff Rhys Jones is fascinated by the Indian Pacific

Griff Rhys Jones is fascinated by the Indian Pacific Series expected to air later this year or early 2020

The series Griff Off the Rails: Down Under began filming in regional Australia this month and focuses on four railways: The Indian Pacific, The Ghan, the Spirit of Queensland and the Spirit of the Outback.

Series producer and director Julia Peters said the television program would also focus on the landscape and the regional communities around the railways.

"Griff will go on these adventures and a lot of it does relate back to the train but a lot is a bigger picture of Australia," she said.

"The average Australian would not have the access to the type of behind-the-scenes stories we'd be doing."

Jones is best known for Not The Nine O'Clock News but has also established himself as a travel presenter with programs like Three Men in a Boat and Slow Train Through Africa.

The series will feature four railways including the Indian Pacific. ( Flickr: Simon Yeo )

Peters said the new series was prompted by Jones's fascination with Australia's longest train journey, the Indian Pacific.

"Interestingly Griff did the Indian Pacific and was travelling around and he loves trains, loves Australia," she said.

"Then one of the executive producers said to him, 'Well, why don't we do a train series?'

"He was just hooked on that idea so it was a good excuse for him to come back here and really look at Australia, Australians and our rail system of course."

Jones visited Kalgoorlie's Super Pit gold mine. ( Supplied: Essential Media )

Jones with members of the WA School of Mines' Wombats mining team. ( Supplied: Essential Media )

Peters spoke to the ABC in the first weeks of filming and said the crew had already covered several towns, from the Blue Mountains in NSW to the WA Goldfields, as well as making a trip to Karratha to see the driverless iron ore trains.

"We went to the Super Pit [gold mine in Kalgoorlie] and Griff got to go in one of the big machines that carve out the earth, so that was absolutely incredible," she said.

"Then we went out with an actual prospector into his patch and did the old-fashioned looking for gold."

'Big appetite' for rail series

The series is expected to air on the ABC later this year or in early 2020 and comes after the success of SBS's Slow Summer series, which featured two mammoth broadcasts of the Indian Pacific and The Ghan.

The three-hour broadcast of The Ghan had an average audience of 600,000 last year, according to SBS.

Peters said the Griff series had also been secured by ITV in the UK and sales through the international distributor were "really going well".

"People love stories about Australia because there are such great people and it's a great land, so I think it's going to be very successful," she said.

The doco will also showcase the landscape and the communities around the railways. ( Supplied: Essential Media )

On the right track for a tourism boost?

Tourism Australia managing director John O'Sullivan said programs like this series were "really powerful in exposing a different part of the tourism story to a key international market".

"Regional Australia is really important for the international visitor economy, with 46 cents in every dollar being spent in regional locations," he said.

"Certainly having programs like this will only further boost the exposure that we're able to give those parts of the country."

Mr O'Sullivan said Australia's rail routes were popular with visitors from the United Kingdom, other European markets and the United States.

"But increasingly now we're also trying to promote particularly The Ghan into China," he said.

"Every one of our major source markets have amazing cities, but what they don't have connected to these amazing cities is regional locations with that Australian personality brought to life through its people and our Indigenous culture."

Peters said she also believed the series would see a rise in tourists to outback Australia.

"[I believe it will bring a tourism boost] especially in somewhere like Karratha because it's absolutely beautiful," she said.

"On one side, you've got mining and these incredible trains winding their way through the landscape and on the other side you've got this strong Indigenous culture and the national parks."