In the 19th century weapons became more sophisticated and more deadly, and the results were higher casualties with devastating wounds. Trains were part of the problem but they became part of the solution with the introduction of ambulance trains. These hospitals on wheels were first introduced in the American Civil War, but were vastly improved in the First World War. Medical historian Emily Mayhew takes the journey made a century ago by the wounded from trench to Home Front hospital, whilst Edgar Jones of the Maudsley Hospital explains how shell-shock victims were transported and treated.

Four railway journeys that changed modern history: 24 year-old Winston Churchill boarded an armoured train during the Boer War hoping for a newspaper scoop. He was captured, but became world famous after escaping. In 1917 Lenin crossed Europe in a sealed train, aided by the Germans who hoped that he would drag Russia out of the war. The infamous Hungarian Gold Train that contained plundered Jewish jewellery and gold was an exercise in naked greed at the end of the Second World War, whilst the Kindertransport saved almost 10,000 Jewish children from certain death. John Fieldsend and Dame Stephanie Shirley give a moving account of their journeys.