While countless generations of small boys may have dreamed of becoming engine drivers, as indeed many still do, for more than one million people at the height of the railway age, the railways did represent their career. 

The top-link driver on the great named expresses of the age of steam may have been the pinnacle of the railways, in terms of popular perception, these individuals could only have got there with the assistance of myriad other trades and after years of progressing through the more junior grades of footplate staff. From the humble junior porter through to the chairman of the board, the railways employed a vast array of different trades, all of whom were essential in keeping the trains running.

Some of these jobs, such as that of the track gangs, are still an important part of the maintenance of the modern railway, but many others, such as blacksmiths, have now disappeared.