A popular opera singer falls in love with a gangly farm boy. Anton's father is left all alone when his son runs off to the Big City with Ilona. Things really get sticky when Albert becomes obsessed with the notion that Ilona is actually his own illegitimate daughter!
Bob Holt's last journey as a Railway engine driver before his retirement, a journey disturbed by his distress at leaving the Railway, and his suspicions of the relationship between his wife and his fireman. Aboard the train are a pair of pickpockets, a honeymoon couple, a drunk, a temperance pamphleteer and a host of familiar types, all more-or-less bizarre in characteristically English ways. Bob takes an unexpected course of action, and the characters start interacting in varied and unexpected ways. When, at last, the train stops, all has been resolved, but not as might have been expected at the beginning of the journey.