Fifty-two years later, an elderly Wilbur is at his home in Bedfordshire. After a piano lesson, he feels lightheaded. He begins practicing when the landline phone rings. To his shock, the caller is his ex-wife, Maggie, whom he has not spoken to in decades. During their awkward conversation, he learns she received a Facebook message he sent six years ago but didn’t know what to say. He tells her he has just been playing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” remembering how she loved it. Maggie mentions she recently had a vivid dream about them being happy together. The call ends with the two agreeing to speak again soon.

Feeling breathless after his phone call with Maggie, Wilbur feels a sudden need to find the letter she wrote when she left him. He searches his attic, feeling increasingly unwell, and finds the final page. In the letter, Maggie expresses her heartbreak, explaining she is leaving because Wilbur is never fully present. She states that although their relationship is over, she believes their love still exists in memory and concludes, “I will meet you there” (16).

While reading the last page of Maggie’s letter, Wilbur is overwhelmed by a sharp pain in his neck that spreads down his arm, accompanied by crushing pressure in his chest. He staggers outside, hoping to get the attention of his gardener, Josh, who is on a tractor-mower. Wilbur collapses on the lawn before he can reach him. The page from the letter lies on the kitchen floor inside the house.

Wilbur does not regain consciousness and dies in the hospital just after midnight. He first experiences a sense of calm within a soft yellow light, which then gives way to the feeling of landing back inside a body. He finds himself on a desolate train platform with a sign that reads “WILBUR.” A small cardboard ticket materializes in his hand for a single journey on the Midnight Train, scheduled to depart at 00:01.

Wilbur realizes his body feels young and healthy, without any of his elderly aches and pains. Looking down, he sees he is wearing the same 1970s-style flared jeans, shirt, and sandals he wore on his honeymoon in Venice. He feels the tight skin and sideburns of his 29-year-old self. A gleaming steam engine named “THE MIDNIGHT TRAIN” pulls into the station. A woman in old-fashioned clothes gets off, introduces herself as Agnes, and says she has been expecting him. Confused and scared, Wilbur demands to know what is happening.

Agnes reveals that she is Mrs. Agnes Bagdale, the original owner of a Sheffield bookshop Wilbur knew as a child. Wilbur remembers her as the formidable old woman who used to sit in the shop after her son, Arthur, took over. Agnes, however, now appears as she did in her prime in 1921, a year before she opened the shop after her husband died in the war. She promises to explain everything to the bewildered Wilbur.

Agnes explains she is a ghost assigned to guide Wilbur through a review of his own life. The Midnight Train, she says, is a journey all souls take after death. His appearance as a 29-year-old signifies the age when he was “closest to his true self” (28). This journey will allow him to revisit his past as an unseen observer before reaching his final destination, eternity, where he can reunite with loved ones like his brother, Dougie, and with Maggie after she dies. She clarifies that his happiness there depends on understanding his past life. After some hesitation, Wilbur hands Agnes his ticket and boards the train.

Inside an old-fashioned carriage, Wilbur is startled by his reflection, confirming he is once again the 29-year-old man from his honeymoon. Looking out the window, Wilbur sees a strange, shifting landscape under a jaundiced yellow sky, with buildings that seem to float like boats. When he asks where they are going, Agnes corrects him, stating the question is not “where,” but “when.”

The sky outside the train window displays scenes from Wilbur’s past. He witnesses his father’s Hurricane plane exploding during World War II—a traumatic event he has imagined his whole life but never saw. Agnes explains these are deep, inherited memories. The vision triggers a sudden, overwhelming grief for the father he never met. The train soon comes to a stop beside a broken wall and an expanse of rubble. Agnes instructs Wilbur to get off, explore his past, and return to the train when he hears it again.

Wilbur steps off the train into 1945, post-war Sheffield. He recognizes the rubble as Glossop Road, the street where he grew up. He sees a group of boys playing football, among them his older brother, Dougie Budd, who is around seven years old. Wilbur calls out to him, but Dougie cannot see or hear him. A football passes directly through Wilbur’s chest, confirming he is a ghost. He watches as Dougie gets into a fight with a larger boy named Bobby Thomas.

Wilbur and Dougie’s mother, Edith, arrives pushing a pram and angrily breaks up the fight. When the baby in the pram cries, Wilbur realizes it is his infant self. He follows his family home and steps through the closed door into his childhood living room, where a steel table doubles as an air-raid shelter. As his mother holds his baby self, Wilbur is stunned when the infant’s eyes lock directly on him.

Now thinking of himself as “the Ghost,” Wilbur confirms that his baby self can see him. The baby’s eyes follow his movements. Edith tells Dougie she is leaving for her shift at the pub and instructs him to watch the baby. Once she is gone, Dougie comforts the crying infant by showing him a toy train, the “Duke of Gloucester.” He confesses to the baby that he stole the train from a toy shop because it was unfair that Wilbur had no toys. The Ghost is surprised by this revelation and by Dougie’s tenderness. Their moment is interrupted by a hard knock at the door.

The visitor is Mr. Parkin, the family’s stern landlord. As he questions Dougie about the rent, the Ghost hears the whistle of the Midnight Train arriving on the street but stays to watch the confrontation. When Dougie insists his mother left no money, Mr. Parkin vows to return the next morning. Agnes then appears beside the Ghost, scolding him for not returning to the train immediately. Onboard, Agnes confirms that babies can sometimes perceive ghosts but establishes firm rules for the journey: Wilbur must not meddle, must never speak to himself, and must always return to the train promptly. She insists this discipline is the only way for him to understand his life and reach eternity.