A captivating journey through the rich history of railways Since their invention, trains have changed the way we live. They have brought communities together, unified nations, shrunk continents, and become the power and reach on which whole empires have been built.“How Trains Changed the World” takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of this marvelous machine. It is a voyage of discovery through every continent of the world, each with its own unique stories to tell about “The Iron Horse”. From the Cape-to-Cairo railway, an ambitious yet unfinished project started by the British Empire to establish control over the African continent, a section of which still runs today as “The Lunatic Express”; to the extraordinary feats of engineering and endurance it took to drive a railway over – and through – the Rocky Mountains in the US; and the colonial railway building program in India, which forms the basis of what is, today, the fourth largest railway network and eighth largest employer in the world, carrying more than 22 million passengers every day. Charting the history of mankind itself, from revolution and war to extraordinary technological and scientific advances, this fascinating documentary reveals the story of how trains have helped to define our world.