The young hero, Hugo Cabret, through a series of events outside his control, lives a clandestine life in a grand but unnamed train station in Paris and spends his days winding the enormous clocks which are the unerring reference points for the coming and going of trains connecting all the legendary capitals of Europe across its ancient timeless landscapes.
Acquiring it would be an even brighter feather in his cap than Hutchison Whampoa, the concern he wrested from British control in a 1979 deal that won him praise as a local hero.