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3 Ambulance Trains

In the 19th century weapons became more sophisticated and more deadly, and the results were higher casualties with devastating wounds. Trains were part of the problem but they became part of the solution with the introduction of ambulance trains. These hospitals on wheels were first introduced in the American Civil War, but were vastly improved in the First World War. Medical historian Emily Mayhew takes the journey made a century ago by the wounded from trench to Home Front hospital, whilst Edgar Jones of the Maudsley Hospital explains how shell-shock victims were transported and treated.

4 The First Railroad War

During the American Civil War the nature of conflict changed fundamentally. Both Union and Confederate Generals used trains to bring thousands of reinforcements, leading to longer and more frequent battles. It was the North who exploited the railroads the better - through geniuses such as Herman Haupt, who developed techniques of swift railroad construction - and destruction. The episode tells the story of the Great Locomotive Chase - an attempt by Northern spies to steal the locomotive The General. The conflict that divided America helped its unification - the lessons learnt in the war were used to build the Transcontinental Railroad that opened four years after the fighting ceased.