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7 World War One

The story of the trench warfare of the First World War is well known. What is less well known is that the efficiency of the railway networks of both sides helped cause that stalemate. The programme describes the German Schlieffen Plan to use rail networks to invade France, and in the city of Liege how the Belgian railway workers resisted that invasion. On a light railway that still operates in the fields of the Somme, their extraordinary power and versatility is revealed. The programme looks at the remarkable work in France of the British Railway Operating Division and the bravery of its crews.

8  World War Two: The Home Front

Between 1939 and 1945 war came to Britain's railways. By now an established technology, in the Second World War trains operating in Britain came into their own - bringing troops back home after the humiliation of Dunkirk, as well as taking hundreds of thousands of city children to safety. The programme interviews eye-witnesses to both railway adventures, and discovers the disused Tube station where the evacuations were coordinated. There are tales of the heroism of the railway staff during the Blitz, and how a small siding in a Hampshire railway station played its part in the preparations for D-Day.