The Railway Children

Fiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 1906

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-14

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

When the novel opens, the three “railway children” of the novel’s title—Roberta (Bobbie), Peter, and Phyllis—are living privileged, upper-class lives with their parents in London. Their father works for the government; their mother is an artistic woman who loves to tell stories and writes poems to amuse her children. They live in a large house with servants, and “always had everything they needed: pretty clothes, good fires, a lovely nursery with heaps of toys, and a Mother Goose wallpaper” (6). This idyllic existence ends abruptly days after Peter’s birthday when two men show up at the house and have a heated conversation with Father, who disappears shortly afterward. Peter’s toy engine—his favorite birthday present—is left broken, as Father has not had time to fix it before his disappearance. Mother announces that Father will be away for a while and that the family must move to the countryside, admitting to the children that the family needs “to play at being poor for a bit” (24), although she doesn’t tell them why.

Chapter 2 Summary

Upon their arrival in the countryside, the children discover that their circumstances have changed drastically. Their new house is modest and not as comfortable as their modern, spacious house back in London. They will have to make do with fewer possessions, no live-in servants, and modest food to eat. Yet the children soon discover new forms of distraction in their surroundings. Downhill from home they can “see the line of the railway” (38), which becomes of central importance to their lives and the novel’s action. At the railway, they compare the trains to dragons, and wonder if the trains they see are “going to London […] where Father is” (43). They meet the Porter, who shows them markings on the coal supplies and warns them against theft.

When Peter grows tired of the family’s reduced circumstances, he gives into the temptation to secure more coal for the family and steals some from the train station. He and his sisters eventually get caught by the Station Master, who lectures them on their misdeeds, but ultimately lets them off with a warning.

Chapter 3 Summary

The children become particularly attached to a train they call the Green Dragon (62), which they wave to each morning as a means of sending their love to their absent father. On this train is a man soon known as the old gentleman—a wealthy, elderly man in the first-class carriage, who returns the children’s waves. The children also make friends with some of the employees of the railway, including the Porter and the Station Master, who bears no ill-will toward the children for their coal theft.

When Mother becomes ill, the children grow worried about their inability to afford the things that will make her feel better. They write a letter to the old gentleman and leave it at the station for him, asking him to provide them with the things they need. The old gentleman obliges, sending a large hamper full of everything required, plus some extra treats.

Chapters 1-3 Analysis

The novel’s first three chapters do much to introduce some of the key themes and elements that dominate the work as a whole. The children’s dramatic and abrupt change of circumstances introduces the defining contrast between privilege and adversity that is central to the novel, as the children are forced to leave behind very comfortable, stable lives within a traditional nuclear family unit for a more impoverished, isolated existence in the countryside without their father present. Despite their misfortunes, Mother tries to model stoic endurance by maintaining a brave face and reminding her children that, “the great thing is to be cheerful” (33). In these first three chapters and throughout the novel, the family’s determination to thrive against the odds sustain them in the face of their hardships, suggesting that it is not wealth or social standing that is necessary for a meaningful life.

Peter’s birthday gift of the toy engine foreshadows the love the children will feel for the real railway once they are living out in the country. The breaking of the engine shortly before Father’s arrest also symbolizes the breakdown of the family unit. The children’s fascination with “the Green Dragon”—and the explicit association they draw between the train and their absent father—is rooted in the symbolism the real railway carries for them: the trains “seemed to be all that was left to link the children to the old life that had once been theirs” (61). The railway functions simultaneously as both a link to the past and their consolation in the present, as they are destined “to love the railway” and treat it as “the center of their new life” out in the countryside (26-27). The old gentleman in the first-class carriage of the Green Dragon, who returns the children’s waves, makes his first appearance in Chapter 3. He represents a means of salvation for the family; his generosity in sending the hamper in response to the children’s request foreshadows the other, increasingly important acts of kindness he will perform for the family over the course of the novel.

Peter’s theft of the coals reveals that the children do have some adjustments to make, and that their expectations are at first out of step with their new circumstances. The theft also demonstrates a reluctance to accept the limitations of straitened circumstances, and his uneasy justification of his crime as “coal mining” speaks to a self-centered attitude in need of correction. However, the Station Master’s ultimate indulgence toward the guilty children once he learns of their troubles reveals the kindness and friendship that they will find at the railway station, further deepening the children’s bond with the railway.