Train
A train was a grouping of vehicles that moved, particularly over metal rails, transporting passengers or freight. According to the Second Doctor, trains had carriages, went on wheels, on rails, and were drawn by steam. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"])
History[[edit] | edit source]
On Earth[[edit] | edit source]
The Fifth Doctor, after landing his TARDIS at a train station in Oxfordshire on 11 June 1925, mentioned to his companions that he had always wanted to drive a train as a boy. (TV: Black Orchid [+]Loading...["Black Orchid (TV story)"]) The same was true of Henry Gordon Jago. (AUDIO: Higson & Quick [+]Loading...["Higson & Quick (audio story)"])
In 1863, the Third Doctor and Charlie Fisher used a train engine to escape from the Confederate lines after their hot air balloon was shot down. (COMIC: Backtime [+]Loading...["Backtime (comic story)"])
In 1868, Ian Chesterton used a train to kill the Animus, which was hiding in the London Underground. (COMIC: Unnatural Selection [+]Loading...["Unnatural Selection (comic story)"])
In 1879, Queen Victoria had planned to take the train to Aberdeen, but was forced to go by coach when a fallen tree blocked the line, as arranged by the Brethren. (TV: Tooth and Claw [+]Loading...["Tooth and Claw (TV story)"])
In 1885, a Shift Agent took over a steam train in order to get to Euston and recover a case of dark matter. (COMIC: Track Attack [+]Loading...["Track Attack (comic story)"])
In 1898, Ian Stratford took the train from Paddington station to the town of Three Sisters. (PROSE: The Banquo Legacy [+]Loading...["The Banquo Legacy (novel)"])
In 1909, Jack Harkness and a group of soldiers under his command were travelling through Lahore by train when the soldiers were killed by Fairies. (TV: Small Worlds [+]Loading...["Small Worlds (TV story)"])
The Eighth Doctor claimed he took a train with Lenin from Switzerland to Petrograd. (AUDIO: Storm Warning [+]Loading...["Storm Warning (audio story)"])
In 1917, the Doctor's TARDIS materialised on a train en route to Darjeeling, India. (AUDIO: The Roof of the World [+]Loading...["The Roof of the World (audio story)"])
In 1920, Jamie McCrimmon saw a train for the first time. (AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead [+]Loading...["The Mouthless Dead (audio story)"])
In 1930s Germany, Nazi party officials had their own private trains. The Seventh Doctor and Ace were passengers on Adolf Hitler's train when it journeyed from Nuremberg to Berlin. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus [+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Exodus (novel)"])
On 1 September 1939, Cecelia Pollard was convinced to board the Vienna to Calais Transcontinental Express by Celestial Intervention Agency agent Torvald instead of committing suicide. President Romana II, Leela, Narvin, Mephistopheles Arkadian and Torvald all boarded the train because of Cecelia's presence. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye [+]Loading...["A Blind Eye (audio story)"])
On 7 September 1952, the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe visited the train Ivy Lee. (AUDIO: The Nowhere Place [+]Loading...["The Nowhere Place (audio story)"])
On 20 July 1966, a train ran past a London warehouse, frightening Jamie McCrimmon, who was from a time before trains. The Second Doctor explained what trains were to him. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks [+]Loading...["The Evil of the Daleks (TV story)"])
In 1967, Madeline Burton, while using Om-Tsor, accidentally caused a train in northwestern India to derail, killing the hundreds of people on board. (PROSE: Revolution Man [+]Loading...["Revolution Man (novel)"])
In 1979, the Fourth Doctor and Romana II took a train while in Paris. (TV: City of Death [+]Loading...["City of Death (TV story)"])
Circa 1990, the Seventh Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith took a train to Royal Albert Hall, which was abducted by the Kalik. (COMIC: Train-Flight [+]Loading...["Train-Flight (comic story)"])
In 1993, a Fortean Flicker transported a group of train passengers to Hogsumm. (PROSE: The Highest Science [+]Loading...["The Highest Science (novel)"]) They were later returned to their own time by Romana II. (PROSE: Happy Endings [+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
In either 2000 or 2001, Rose Tyler and Shareen Costello caught a train to Parc Asterix after flunking off from their school trip to the Musee de Louvre. (PROSE: Meet Rose [+]Loading...["Meet Rose (short story)"], COMIC: Art Attack [+]Loading...["Art Attack (comic story)"])
In March 2005, Chris Martin watched the Ninth Doctor get kicked off a train as his season ticket wasn't valid until 2009. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man? [+]Loading...["Have You Seen This Man? (short story)"])
Circa December 2009, Mike Yates took a train to Nest Cottage to answer a strange advertisement. (AUDIO: The Stuff of Nightmares [+]Loading...["The Stuff of Nightmares (BBC audio story)"])
In Bristol in the 2010s, a train almost ran over a defenceless and externally shrunken TARDIS, which had the Twelfth Doctor inside. Later, Clara Oswald and Rigsy used another train in an attempt to trample a group of the Boneless. However, the plan failed as the Boneless turned the train two-dimensional. (TV: Flatline [+]Loading...["Flatline (TV story)"])
Miss Quill wondered if Dorothea Ames' metaphysical engine "buzzed [her] atomically" to the Peak District. She pointed out the area's relative proximity to Coal Hill Academy by saying, "There are trains for that." (TV: The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did [+]Loading...["The Metaphysical Engine, or What Quill Did (TV story)"])
In 2050, due to the Oroborus consuming time, all the trains in London ran on time, even if they were several hours late, and some trains even arrived before they had left. (TV: Oroborus [+]Loading...["Oroborus (TV story)"])
In 2080, Ileana de Santos and her associates took a private monorail train from Rio de Janeiro to a ranch house in the Amazon desert. The Fifth Doctor, with some difficulty, materialised the TARDIS in the train's baggage car. (AUDIO: Loups-Garoux [+]Loading...["Loups-Garoux (audio story)"])
Other realities[[edit] | edit source]
In an alternate timeline, Amy Pond took the Eleventh Doctor aboard a train headed for Area 52 in Egypt. A train also ran through the Gherkin. (TV: The Wedding of River Song [+]Loading...["The Wedding of River Song (TV story)"])
On other planets[[edit] | edit source]
On an Earth-like planet, the Daleks used a train for transport. The Second Doctor crashed the train by removing a section of the track, causing it to derail. (COMIC: The Exterminator [+]Loading...["The Exterminator (comic story)"])
One human colony world which was mostly ice used skitrains, which had runners instead of wheels. (PROSE: Cold Fusion [+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)"])
On the stormy planet Tempest, the only way to safely traverse the wastelands was by monorail trains. (PROSE: Tempest [+]Loading...["Tempest (novel)"])
On Florana, trains were used to transport prisoners to factories. (AUDIO: The Elite [+]Loading...["The Elite (audio story)"])
In a heavily polluted city on an Earth-like world, the Fourth Doctor assisted the Guardian Angels in finding the correct train track which would lead them out of the city and to the countryside. However, when he arrived there in the TARDIS and waited for them, they never arrived, and he concluded that they didn't make it, which was perhaps just as well since the countryside was just as polluted as the city itself. (COMIC: End of the Line [+]Loading...["End of the Line (comic story)"])
In the Matrix on Gallifrey, the Fourth Doctor found himself trapped on a recreation of a train line, his foot caught in the tracks after the points changed, while Goth drove a train toward him. The Doctor freed himself and jumped clear at the last second, and the train vanished. (TV: The Deadly Assassin [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"]) According to the Twelfth Doctor, Gallifrey didn't have steam trains. An avid fan of them, the Doctor had considered his homeworld to have missed out. (PROSE: A History of Humankind [+]Loading...["A History of Humankind (novel)"])
On the Dalek Foundation world of Sunlight 349, journalist Lillian Belle was gathering information at the site of a head-on collision between two trains. When a Dalek arrived on the scene, it murdered one of the drivers (Mr Sezman) and the medics who rescued him from the wreckage and left. (PROSE: The Dalek Generation [+]Loading...["The Dalek Generation (novel)"])
Through space[[edit] | edit source]
A space-faring version of the Orient Express ferried passengers between planets, travelling along hyperspace ribbons. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express [+]Loading...["Mummy on the Orient Express (TV story)"])
Another space-faring train was hijacked by the CyberMasters to steal the Qurunx it was transporting. The Thirteenth Doctor, Yasmin Khan and Graham O'Brien attempted to stop them, but failed. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])
The Eighth Doctor kept a model train set in his TARDIS, which he constructed over a period of several years until it eventually became a microcosm of its own. (PROSE: Model Train Set [+]Loading...["Model Train Set (short story)"], Vampire Science [+]Loading...["Vampire Science (novel)"], Genocide [+]Loading...["Genocide (novel)"])
The Second Doctor found a wind-up toy train in a giant toyshop which was big enough to ride in. However, he and his friends could only wind it up enough to make it go a few yards. (PROSE: The Celestial Toyshop [+]Loading...["The Celestial Toyshop (short story)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | edit source]
- The 2005 feature UNIT Publications was written on a train by James Goss.[1]
