Together with the TV team, Anthony Burton has travelled to North America, India, China and Africa to see and photograph historic engines, such as the Union Pacific's gigantic 4-8-4 and the monumental steam locomotives still used on the Chinese-Mongolian border, and some of the world's most spectacular lines like the Durango and Silverton in Colorado. There are also chapters on the great 19th-century railway contractors, like Thomas Brassey, specialist freight trains for mining and logging, narrow-gauge lines, the lives of working railwaymen, the great luxury trains such as the Orient Express, the epic feats of engineering which made possible the building of America's transcontinental system or the Alpine railways of Switzerland, and a look at modern railways and their future prospects.