The Railway Children
by E E Nesbit

November 2000

Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis are London schoolchildren aged 12, 10, and 8, respectively. One day their father leaves with two men and does not come back, and mother packs them off to a small house in the country. The children become familiar with the passing trains, the workers at the train station and signal-box, and life in a small town while their mother struggles to make ends meet writing stories.