December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the man in charge of the excursion to the delightful spa town of Great Malvern. He walks to the front of the...

1860. Following a string of successful performances, the Moscardi Circus is travelling by train to Newcastle for their next show. Amongst the usual railway hubbub the animals have been loaded, the clowns, now incognito, are aboard and Mauro Moscardi himself is comfortable in a first-class compartment with a cigar. Yet a collision on the track with a couple of sleepers causes pandemonium: passengers are thrown about, animals escape and the future of...

When Cambridge student Robert Pomeroy is killed on the railway, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming are called upon to investigate. With academic disputes, romantic interests and a sporting rivalry with Oxford in play, the Railway Detective will have his work cut out.

Halloween, 1861. A special train with two carriages steams across the Lake District at night on its way to a place notorious for its record of supernatural incidents. Most of those on board have been fortified by alcohol so the mood is boisterous. Lighting inside the carriages is poor and without warning, the lamp goes out in the last compartment of the second carriage, plunging it into darkness. When the special reaches the end of its journey, the...

An exquisitely designed silver coffee-pot in the shape of a locomotive is on its way to Cardiff in the care of young, talented silversmith, Hugh Kellow. When the coffee-pot is stolen and a murder is committed at the Railway Hotel, Inspector Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming of Scotland Yard are called to investigate.

On a dark, brooding evening on the Isle of Wight, Agnes Raybould and her companion find themselves an empty first-class compartment on the train. But before long a middle-aged man, clearly in high spirits after dining at his club, joins them, and begins a conversation. His name is Edwin Blanchard - and within moments of the train leaving the station, Agnes and her accomplice strangle him . Detective Inspector Colbeck is called to Scotland Yard immediately...