Rail transport in fiction

Examples of railways in fiction include:

Films

Literature
  • The Trackman (book) Written by Karl Davis. A police procedural crime novel set in Hull, London, Newcastle & the Home Counties. The main character (Det. Sgt Joe Tenby) hunts a deranged serial killer who is targeting people connected to the railway network.
  • 4.50 from Paddington (book; film and TV adaptations) – a Miss Marple story. A passenger on one train is witness to a murder being committed on another train.
  • The Adventure of the Lost Locomotive - a Solar Pons story about a disappearing train on the Great Northern Railway.
  • Anna Karenina (book) – by Leo Tolstoy. Train travel is arguably the most prominent motif of the story.
  • "The Celestial Railroad" – Short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Choo Choo: The Story of a Little Engine Who Ran Away (book, episode adaptation in Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories) - A children's book by Virginia Lee Burton The adventures of a beautiful little locomotive who decided to run away from her humdrum duties.
  • The Dark Tower (book series) by Stephen King – The main character Roland of Gilead travels through a series of caves which were once part of an underground railroad system. The characters also ride on a monorail with artificial intelligence.
  • The Devil's Horse, The Poison Tree and The Abyss in Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' The Morland Dynasty series feature the development of steam power and the first railways in Britain.
  • Galaxy Express 999 – From the manga and anime of the same name by Leiji Matsumoto, this train travels the galaxy from planet to planet.
  • Iron Council (book) by China Mieville) – a fantasy novel about the building of a cross-continental railway line.
  • Railsea (book) by China Mieville - a fantasy novel that features railway tracks that represent oceans and sea called "Railsea" and features giant moles ("moldywarpes") that represent whales and boat-like trains. It parodies Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.
  • Jim Stringer: Steam Detective - series of mystery novels by Andrew Martin set on various British railway lines.
  • La Bête humaine – (novel) by Émile Zola, filmed 5 times, e.g. as Cruel Train
  • The Engine Woman’s Light (Laurel Anne Hill) – a spirits-meet-steampunk novel about the heroic journey of a young Latina in an alternate 19th Century California, where trains are used to transport undesirables to a dreaded asylum.
  • The Little Engine That Could – children's book. Also adapted as an animated film in 1991 (see The Little Engine That Could (film)).
  • The Locomotive – dynamic poem for children by Julian Tuwim, filmed by Zbigniew Rybczyński
  • The Lost Special - short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, about the investigation of a special train mysteriously disappearing.
  • Making Tracks (23 Classic Railroad Stories) (2013), ed. by Jon Schlenker and Charles G. Waugh.
  • The Moosepath Saga by Van Reid – All six books in this series feature travel by rail, entailing adventure, comedy, mystery, and romance in late 19th century Maine.
  • The Motion Demon – 1919 (book) horror stories by Stefan Grabiński- Engine Driver Grot; The Wandering Train; The Motion Demon; The Sloven; The Perpetual Passenger; In the Compartment; Signals; The Siding; Ultima Thule.
  • Murder on the Orient Express (book by Agatha Christie, 1934; film) – describes a train journey from Istanbul to Paris aboard the Orient Express during which a murder takes place. Hercule Poirot, riding on the train solves the mystery and justice is served.
  • The Mystery of the Blue Train (book, TV adaptation) – earlier Poirot story in which a murder takes place on a train.
  • The Network (book) – by Laurence Staig. An ancient prophecy is realised one Christmas Eve in the London Underground, a dramatic race against time as 3 people are thrown together to prevent a terrifying catastrophe.
  • Night on the Galactic Railroad (novel, film) - two boys travel on a magical train across the night sky - but there is a deeper meaning to the journey.
  • The Railway Series, British stories about a fictional railway by Rev. W. Awdry, which would later be adapted into the children's show Thomas and Friends.
  • Silver on the Tree, the last book in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising cycle - approaching the climax of the story, the main characters travel on a mystical train to the final battle between the Light and the Dark
  • Strangers on a Train (novel, film) – tells the story of how two strangers meet on a train and decide to exchange murders so they can't be tied to each other.
  • Taggart Comet (Atlas Shrugged)
  • The Thirty-Nine Steps – (book by John Buchan, films, one by Alfred Hitchcock) features a sequence where the character Richard Hannay escapes from the Police by jumping from a train on the Forth Bridge in Scotland.
  • Via Bodenbach, an experimental novel about a train journey to Berlin by Hungarian novelist Ferenc Körmendi, published in 1932 and widely translated.
  • The Wind in the Willows - an episode in the novel involves the flight of Mr. Toad by rail and a chase-scene with another train full of policemen.
  • Grim Tuesday - The second book in The Keys to the Kingdom series feature a train with SPIKES all over it.
  • Greatwinter Trilogy - A book series featuring trains powered by wind turbines and trains powered by pedaling done by it passengers. Passengers are ranked according to how much they pedal, and those who pedal most get credits towards their fare and priority use of the railside facilities.
  • Red Mars - The first book in the Mars Trilogy feature a train that went around the circumference of the moon and travel fast enough to generate rotatinal gravity, relieving the difficulties of living in microgravity and allowing colonists to acclimate before moving down to the Martian surface colonies.
  • Inverted World - A novel about a large city run on rails.
  • Commonwealth Saga - A novel series feature huge, nuclear-powered trains for interstellar travel (through artificial wormholes).
  • Wheelworld - The second novel in the To the Stars (trilogy) set in an agricultural colony on a planet with very extreme seasons causing the entire colony to escape the brutal summers twice per year by turning into a mobile colony. They did this by jacking up the colony's main buildings on wheels, forming them up behind the colony's nuclear power plants (which now transformed into an enormous locomotive) into a train-like vehicle that run on roads rather than tracks. This make the 12,000 mile trek to the other side of the planet.
  • Dreadnought - The third novel in Cherie Priest Clockwork Century novel, where the main character ride on a Union war locomotive called the Dreadnought. It is used by the Union to terrorize Confederate rail traffic. It's a warship on rails, with a heavily armored engine, plenty of automated guns, and a complement of troops on board.
  • Nightside (book series) - A book series feature subway trains that don't require drivers, it travel through various other dimensions as shortcuts, and heal themselves when damaged.
  • Raising Steam - The 40th Discworld novel feature the first steam locomotive on Discworld called Iron Girder.
  • The Boundless - A novel by Kenneth Oppel set in a train called The Boundless.
  • The Half-Made World - A novel featuring The 38 Engines of the Line which are sentient trains. Nobody knows their exact origin.
  • Freedom Express - The seventh novel in the Wingman series by Mack Maloney feature a ten-mile-long super-train that is heavily armored, heavily armed and is manned by members of the heroic Post-Apocalyptic Badass Army that protects what remains of America.
  • Starcross (novel) - The second novel in the Larklight series feature a space railway in the Asteroid Belt made by the same company that built the Crystal Palace.
  • Quadrail series - A novel series feature an interplanetary metro system, with light-years-long tunnels that snake around the galaxy and connect many interplanetary systems together.
  • The Yellow Arrow - the allegorical story by Victor Pelevin written in 1993.

Television

Other
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  • Astrotrain – A Decepticon triple-changer from the Transformers toy line, who transforms into a steam locomotive and a shuttle.
  • The Crazy Locomotive – by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1923 expressionistic 45-minutes play ( Obie Award-winning production at the Chelsea Theatre Center in 1977, Classical Theatre of Harlem). Two engineers push the locomotive to ever-greater speeds causing a head-on collision.
  • Dutchman (play) by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) is set in the New York City Subway.
  • The Ghost Train - stageplay by Arnold Ridley about a group of passengers stranded in a haunted railway station. Adapted to film numerous times.
  • Starlight Express (Andrew Lloyd Webber) – Musical about trains competing in a World Championship railway race.
  • "Tons of Steel" – A Grateful Dead song about a man and the train he operates.
  • The Wrecker - stageplay by Arnold Ridley about a steam engine that is allegedly possessed.This later made into the 1929 film The Wrecker however it did not feature the possessed train.
  • Le Transperceneige - A French Graphic novel about a luxury train that went around a post-apocalyptic ice age later inspired the 2013 film Snowpiercer.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - Features the controllable Spirit Train and the Demon Train as an antagonist.
  • Half-Life (series) - Several of the games start or end on trams and trains, and feature themes of rail transportation in-game as usable trams or as obstacles and scenery.
  • Grand Theft Auto - Most of this series of games contains a form of railroading (train, tram etc.).
  • Alice Madness Returns - In game appears the Infernal Train as the main source of destruction in Wonderland, controlled by the Dollmaker. It can be seen throughout numerous parts in the game, and it is used as a final chapter.
  • Mario Kart 8 - One race takes place in a subway station called Golden Bell.
  • Coors Light - One of its ads feature a refrigerated train filled with chilled Coors Light beer. Everytime its passes, its surrounding gets covered in frost.
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent - A Finnish-Swedish webcomic feature an armored railcar called Dalahästen that destroys anything that gets on the tracks. It also has a giant buzzsaws mounted on the top.
  • Paranatural - A webcomic feature a living spirit that represents a flying ghost train called Ghost Train.
  • Batman - The character had a subterranean jet-propelled train car called the Batsubway Rocket.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Vol II - A comic book feature a Secret Black Government Train. Its engine number is .007.
  • Assassin's Creed: The Fall - A comic book mini-series feature Alexander III's Imperial Train.
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See also
  • Hovertrains in fiction

References
  1. "The Burning Train (1980)". imdb.com. Retrieved 3 November 2017.
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