Rural North Yorkshire in the 1950s is the setting for Railway Boy, a heart-warming and nostalgic journey of exploration that describes a young boy's love for railways and describes the surprising lengths to which he would go in pursuit of that passion. Rich in period detail, the autobiographical novel begins with the family of author Mitchell Deaver uprooting from a small market town and moving to a village through which runs a railway line. Mitchell Deaver, eight years old, discovers a signal box (one that is unusual in that it is open to the public) and is enthralled by brightly-coloured signalling equipment and by passage of powerful steam engines, all of which is described in vivid detail in Railway Boy. Mitchell Deaver then moves on to explore the local railway line, with frequently amusing and sometimes completely unexpected results. He confronts the mystery of the vanishing railway station and the mystery of the secret signal box. When all railway avenues of exploration are exhausted, the young Mitchell Deaver turns to his own imagination. The outcome is a hilarious and unforgettable saga that is a blend of innocence and extraordinary inventiveness - a childhood adventure without precedent.
