This is based on the lives of real people and actual events. This remarkable story imagines the life of one young couple in the heady days of the 1880s railway boom, their struggles in the depression of the 1890s, and their rescue from poverty by the Kalgoorlie gold rush. Rob and Mary were both born and raised by the tracks in railway navvy camps, but Rob wants something better for his children and his beloved Mary. In the cold mountain air of Ben Lomond, he promises her she will have a home by the sea. Mary cares more for the people in her family than for houses but follows Rob from colony to colony as he chases opportunity until the day the work runs out and the lives of their children are in danger. Rob and Mary's quest for the great Australian dream parallels the coming together of the colonies to form the nation of Australia. At the start of the new century, it seems they have finally made it, but dreams can be easily shattered. Told with empathy for the characters and an eye for the detail of social history, By the Side of the Tracks is a tribute to the thousands of navvies and their families who built the railways, which made it possible for Australia to become one nation.