The Railway Children is essentially a film about people who are not afraid to care about each other without expecting anything in return. The story probably seems to many people today to be an unlikely fantasy. Is it really possible that a group of children would take the time to go around town and collect birthday presents for some guy who works on the railway? Well, when you consider the film is set over 100 years ago, it's quite possible. What else did kids have to do with their time when the most advanced consumer product was the pocket watch? The day was still 24 hours long but there was no TV, mobile phones or boy bands to waste your time on. Back then, people probably had the time to be kind to each other and they could do it without fear of being scammed.
The children's acting is extraordinarily good. Jenny Agutter shines in her first major film role and Sally Thomsett is the most natural child actor I've seen to date. The adults do a good job too with Bernard Cribbins at his best as the railway guy whose pride gets the better of him.
The DVD is fine but not great; there are no extras at all and the picture is a bit smudgy in the night-time scenes. It is however quite clear in the bright daytime scenes with no noticable grain.
The film is presented in 1.66:1 format (15:9) which is not wide enough for a 16:9 screen and leaves dark bands at the left and right. However, according to the Internet Movie Database this is exactly the format the film was made in so this is more a note than a complaint.
Notwithstanding the lack of extras on the DVD, the film is so good that I'd still advise you to buy it. If I had a time machine, I'd forget the future and I'd go back there, to a time when children waved at trains and got excited by a paper-chase.