Researching the railways: from Dickens to Beeching

It’s always exciting to have a new project. I realised as 2026 dawned that I would finally have the time to begin thinking about and researching a new novel. Without giving anything away, this project will involve the railways in the 1860s, about which I know very little, so have a long way to go. Indeed, I didn’t even realise how interested I was in the history of the railways until I began reading.

My starting point was Fire and Steam: A New History of the Railways in Britain (2007) by Christian Wolmar. I stumbled on this by accident, but a railway enthusiast friend assured me that it is a very good place to begin and he is not wrong. Not only does it provide me with facts and figures that will help to build foundations, but Wolmar also draws a detailed and atmospheric picture of what it was actually like to participate in the early railways, as a passenger – generally fairly uncomfortable – and as a worker, an engineer, an investor. How much did railway men get paid for various jobs? What did they wear? What were the hours? How dangerous was it to be a navvy? Was there money to be made from investing?  How frequent and how bad were the accidents? While the details of the constuction of all the different lines was a bit repettive and less interesting to me, this book does contain a lot of fascinating information. I rather skimmed the twentieth century, but felt vindicated, as so many other rail users in the Southwest must, by the following conclusion… ‘Other mistakes [of Beeching] included shutting the alternative route between Exeter and Plymouth, which avoided Dawlish where the flooding over the sea wall causes perennial problems…’ (p. 285) 2026 can already testify to that!

But I’m getting side-tracked. Perhaps even more useful to me is 19^th century fiction of the railways, in which writers evoke the lived experiences of early rail travel. Here, of course, Dickens is a great place to start, and I’ve very much enjoyed discovering Mugby Junction (1866), a collection of railway-themed short stories that transport the reader back to the hustle and bustle of stations and railyards of the time. The most famous story in the collection is ‘The Signalman’ which I did already know. Certainly a ghost story, perhaps a horror, perhaps a mystery, in the story an unnamed narrator listens to a tale told by the eponymous railway man, in which he describes encounters with a figure that has been haunting him, each appearance the precursor to a terrible accident. Dicken’s own fascination had macabre origins, following his involvement in a shocking railway accident at Staplehurst in June 1865. While he was unharmed (and nor was his mistress Ellen Ternan), ten passengers were killed and many injured. Dickens was scarred for life by the experience of helping to retrieve the dead and wounded. He found an outlet for this in his fiction.

So, lots to think about here. I’m not sure which direction my story will go in yet, but the research is going to be fun. Any suggestions for 19^th century railway source materials would be very welcome!