It is 1870 and railway workers and their families have flocked to the wild and inhospitable moorland known as Batty Green to build a viaduct on the Midland Railway Company's ambitious new Leeds to Carlisle Line.

Among them are three very different women - tough widow Molly, honest and God-fearing Mary Pratt, and Helen Parker, downtrodden by her husband and seeking a better life.

When tragedy strikes, the lives of the three women are bound together, and each is forced to confront the secrets and calamities that threaten to tear their families apart.