The year is 1941 and the luxurious Super Chief, advertised as the Train of the Stars, carries its passengers into the cool Michigan night. A host of characters have boarded the train at Chicago and history may depend on which of them will make it to the Los Angeles terminus.

In the first of the Chronicles of a Conductor series, senior conductor Clyde Mayer, together with his friend and assistant conductor Bob Preston are dedicated to getting the Super Chief to LA on schedule, but when two passengers - a police officer and a servant to an enigmatic Hollywood starlet - go missing, it becomes clear that not only their passengers' lives, but the fate of the war in Europe, may be at stake.