WHAT better way to stage the Edith Nesbit classic The Railway Children than on a railway platform?

That is just what the Yvonne Arnaud Youth Theatre from Guildford did for the Mid Hants Railway Watercress Line at Ropley station.

All four productions on August 18-19 were sold out, with a record 300 people filling the picnic area at the station to see the happy-ending tale of three children who find adventure while living near a railway line in Edwardian England.

Sadly, the good old English summer stopped production one afternoon. As the audience watched sheltered under a gazebo, the actors carried on in torrential rain until the director ordered them to stop. Once the rain cleared they came back on stage.

Right on cue, at the end of the last show, steam engine 76917 4 MT left to go on its regular Watercress run just as the young heroine, meeting her father’s train after he is released from prison, sees him through a swirl of steam on the platform – and this time there was real steam.

It was the first time a theatrical company has performed at the Watercress Line, but a company spokesman said: “It was such a success, with all the tickets sold out in advance, that we are thinking of doing another one next year.”