The Railway Man, he was one of us

There once lived a man named Eric Lomax. He lived in Scotland, fought in World War II, and survived torture at the hands of Japanese captors only to lead a troubled adult life in Britain. He died in 2012.

For Trains readers, his life story is poignant and remarkable because he was one of us.

The Railway Man, a film recently released in the United States, depicts Lomax’s life in 1980s Britain and through reminiscences and flashbacks to World War II. According to the film, the one-time British Army signal corps officer was a self-professed “train enthusiast” who immersed himself in timetables, facts, and rail knowledge because it was his way of enjoying life – his hobby.

Although the movie gives little information on Lomax’s life before the war, viewers learn that his passion for rail was undiminished after his army surrendered at Singapore in 1942. Indeed, the actor playing Lomax gives knowing glances to the livestock cars he and thousands of soldiers are herded into for what may have been days or weeks. As a prisoner-of-war, Lomax even makes maps and takes notes on the railway he and thousands of Commonwealth forces were forced to build in tortuous conditions across present-day Thailand and Myanmar.

Prison guards searching for contraband find a radio Lomax helped build as well as the maps and suspect him of being a spy. Under harsh interrogation, the guards and the audience marvel at the ultimate reason he gives for making the maps: “I like trains.”

To those in this world for whom railroads, railways, and trains are merely transportation, Lomax’s answer sounds feeble. “Just tell them what they want to hear or tell them nothing,” one might think. For the rest of us, Lomax’s honest answer makes us cringe because we might have said the same thing in similar circumstances and can imagine receiving the beatings, water torture, and death threats for not just being an enemy, but an enemy railfan when it was dangerous to be the former and deadly to be both.

Returning to the 1980s, train travel brings Lomax into contact with the woman who would become his second wife, while his rail “enthusiasm” is portrayed as a balm to cover, not heal, his tortured memories of the war. It’s only because of his wife’s persistence and his friend’s tepid willingness to help her that Lomax is able to achieve peace and reconciliation with his past.

In The Railway Man, Colin Firth portrays Lomax in the 1980s, with Nicole Kidman as his wife, and Stellan Skarsgard as a tragic friend. Acting from these stars plus Jeremy Irvine, as a Lomax at war, and Tanroh Ishida, as Lomax’s prison camp torturer, keeps the plot moving where lesser actors might struggle.

Passenger and freight scenes depicting 1980s Britain and Thailand and 1940s prison trains of Japanese-occupied Southeast Asia work seamlessly into the story line and appear authentic to American eyes.

In a summer season that begins with Memorial Day and includes important anniversaries of the beginning of World War I in 1914, the D-Day Invasion at Normandy in 1944, and a host of bloody battles from the American Civil War in 1864, The Railway Man enables us to pause on a well-done film featuring not a musician, sports star, or scientist at war, but one of our own -- a railfan.

The Railway Man is 116 minutes and is rated "R." It was directed by Jonathan Tepiltzky and produced by The Weinstein Company studios. Lomax's obituary by the BBC in 2012 is here.