The Railway Children (2000 film)

Roberta (Bobbie), Peter and Phyllis live a comfortable and carefree upper middle-class life in London with their parents.

But when their father (Michael Kitchen), a senior civil servant, is arrested on a charge of treason, found guilty, and imprisoned for life they are forced to move with their mother (Jenny Agutter) to Three Chimneys, a cold and run-down country cottage near a railway.

Whilst Mother tries to make a meagre living writing stories and poems she hopes magazines and newspapers will publish, the children seek amusement by watching the trains on the nearby railway line (the fictional Great Northern and Southern Railway) and waving to the passengers.

They become friendly with Perks, the cheerful station porter, but feel the wrath of the stationmaster when Peter is caught trying to steal coal to heat the house.

The children save the lives of passengers on a train by alerting the driver to a landslide; they give shelter to a Russian dissident, Mr Szczepansky, and help to reunite him with his family.

They rescue Jim (JJ Feild), a student at a nearby boarding school, who is injured whilst taking part in a paper chase along the rail line.

Bobbie eventually discovers the truth of her father's absence, despite her mother's efforts to shield the children from it, and appeals to the old gentleman for help.

Birch Grove was seen sporting its original LB&SCR lined brown, and Normandy was painted in Southern Railway unlined black.

Much of the advance publicity for the film focused on the casting of Jenny Agutter as Mother, thirty years on from her portrayal of elder daughter Bobbie in the 1970 film version - a role she had also played in the 1968 BBC Television adaptation, making this her third appearance in a version of the story.