The story concerns a family who move to a house near the railway after the father is falsely accused of selling state secrets to the Russians and imprisoned for five years. The three children, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, find amusement in watching the trains on the nearby railway line and waving to the passengers.
They become friendly with Perks, the station porter, and with The Old Gentleman who regularly takes the 9.45 down train. He is eventually able to help prove their father's innocence, and the family is reunited.
The themeof an innocent man being falsely imprisoned for espionage and finally vindicated might have been influenced by the Dreyfus Affair, which was a prominent world-wide news item a few years before the book
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