The Railway Children is a children’s book by Edith Nesbit, originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905 and published in book form in the same year. It has been adapted for the screen several times, of which the 1970 film version is the best known. The story concerns a family who move from London to ‘The Three Chimneys’, a house near a railway, after the father, who works at the Foreign Office, is imprisoned after being falsely accused of spying. The children, Roberta (nicknamed Bobbie ), Peter and Phyllis, befriend an old gentleman who regularly takes the 9:15am train near their home; he is eventually able to help prove their father’s innocence and the family is reunited.