All aboard and full steam ahead for the latest version of evergreen classic

For the last two years, the York Theatre Royal's "summer pantomime" has been an innovative adaptation of E Nesbit's much-loved classic The Railway Children.

Imaginatively, the production left the theatre building behind, and moved into a special auditorium at the National Rail Museum, where it played to packed audiences and delighted thousands.

What next after such a knock-out event? Believing that everything good that emerges from Yorkshire should be shared with others, the whole show, lock stock and steaming pistons, has been shunted down the line to London, and to the old (and currently vacant) Eurostar platforms at Waterloo, now the city's newest stage venue.

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There is absolutely no way that commuters won't know that The Railway Children has come to town – the poster on the concourse is the biggest theatrical hoarding anywhere in the UK, and both Welcome to Yorkshire and the Rail Museum have plastered the place with promotional teasers.

In York, there was seating for 500 in the audience, and now this is doubled in size. Does this mean that any of the intimacy is lost? As it turns out, not a bit of it, and Nesbit's tale of love, courage, bravery and the romance of steam is every bit as heart-warming in the capital of the UK as it was in the capital of our region.

True, there have been many cast changes, and yes, the show has been extended in one specific way.

But the Mike Kenny adaptation still has passion and a concentration on character – despite dozens of pulsing sound effects, whistles, steam, and the appearance of a real-life green and gold sixty-six

ton Stirling Single locomotive.

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This time this grande dame from the glorious age of steam has enough space to pull in an additional magnificent full-length LNER coach behind her, another loan from the Railway Museum.

No-one could claim that they and Welcome to Yorkshire don't get every penny's value from their generous input. The "lady" gets a gasp and a spontaneous round of applause.

Here, the story is recounted in hindsight, with the children guiding the audience through the events that coloured their upbringing and their lives.

Their mother takes in a political refugee, they avert a rail disaster, and they rescue a boy trapped on the line and in a tunnel – is Jim, the lad they find with the broken leg, going to be Roberta's later love interest?

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The Railway Children still has a lot of power and a good head of steam left in it. What will be Cruden and Kenny's next collaboration?

Maybe they could be back on track with a live version of Murder on the Orient Express? Anything is possible.

In the meantime, don't miss this first class production, a triumph for Yorkshire and the region's "can do" spirit.

Ironically, while the film of the book was made in Yorkshire, the original doesn't even mention our region, and was probably set in the Home Counties.

How's about that for a northern coup?

Until September 4, box office on 0871 297 0740.