• By
  • Jacqueline Palank
European Pressphoto Agency
The cast and crew of “Downton Abbey” at the 2011 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.

The noble residents of “Downton Abbey” would do well to hang onto their feather-bedecked cloche hats and diamond-studded tiaras. They’re in for a wild ride as the third season of the hit television show opens with the news that the titled English family’s fortune has been wiped out in a railroad bankruptcy.

It’s 1920. Robert Crawley, who, as the Earl of Grantham, presides over the grand English manor that is the show’s namesake, has sunk his American heiress wife’s fortune into Canada’s Grand Trunk Railway. To say it wasn’t a good investment would be an understatement, as he finds out that he’ll lose it all upon the railway’s imminent bankruptcy. Without any readily apparent means to fund the lavish lifestyle and household staff that are part and parcel of manor life, the family is divided over whether to keep fighting to save the Downton legacy or to sell the manor and—horror of all horrors—downgrade to a simpler way of life.

It’s a fascinating setup for a television show that thrives on the contrast between upstairs and downstairs, prosperity and poverty, honor and scandal, and glorious past and bright future. We’re hooked. But we also had a more pressing question: Was the Grand Trunk line real, and did it in fact go bankrupt? It was, and it did.

According to the Encyclopædia (yes, we’re in full-on British mode) Britannica, Grand Trunk Railway was incorporated in the 1850s to connect cities in Ontario and Quebec with each other and with Portland, Maine. An ambitious expansion plan, including the construction of a Pacific line, contributed to its financial woes and ultimately led to it being placed into receivership in 1919 and nationalized by the Canadian government.

The railroad’s real-life history has another connection with fictional Downton: Charles M. Hays, the president of Grand Trunk’s Pacific line, perished on the Titanic, according to the Globe and Mail. The news of the ocean liner’s sinking launches “Downton Abbey’s” first episode, shocking the Crawley family with the news that the manor’s heir (and fiancé to the family’s eldest daughter, Lady Mary) was on board and likely died. The emergence of a new heir, a distant cousin who works for a living, throws the family into a tizzy and sets up the glorious soap opera that ensues.

“Downton Abbey” airs Sunday evenings on PBS. Season 3 already aired in the U.K., so please, dear readers, don’t mention any spoilers in the comments!

Write to Jacqueline Palank at jacqueline.palank@dowjones.com.