Growing up before World War II, Lomax is fascinated by railways and spends his holidays trying to spot rare locomotives near his home in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Later, when guards discover Lomax has drawn a detailed map of the Siam-Burma railroad, which the prisoners are being forced to help build, he endures intense questioning and torture, including being waterboarded.

He eventually makes contact with one of his Japanese interrogators after the war, and receives counseling to control his urge to hunt him down and attack him.

Lomax discovers that the man has spent his life trying to make amends for his actions during the war by speaking out against militarism.

[3] It was later adapted into a film, The Railway Man (2013), directed by Jonathan Teplitzky, and starring Colin Firth and Jeremy Irvine (as old and young Lomax), Nicole Kidman (as his wife Patti), Hiroyuki Sanada and Stellan Skarsgård.