Railway stories


As railway lines proliferated in the second half of the 19th century, fiction writers began to develop story lines around railway travel, including Charles Dickens and friends who wrote the amusing Mugby Junction series. Margaret Oliphant wrote many memorable scenes connected to railway journeys, in which we enter the mind of the traveller who is either pondering the scene just left behind, or is looking anxiously ahead to what might be awaiting him or her at the other end; and is meanwhile enclosed for hours in a cold, noisy carriage. Mrs Oliphant also wrote a novel about a great railway engineer, The Railway Man and His Children.

In the five stories given below, the railway setting is the actual cause of people meeting or parting.


A Railway Junction, or The Romance of Ladybank
Short Fiction1873
An Elderly Romance
Short Fiction1879
From London to Edinburgh, a Sentimental Journey
 Short Fiction1890
A Chance Encounter
Short Fiction1891
A Story of a Wedding Tour
Short Fiction1894

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