A story made into a captivating film in a rural corner of the district is now set to wow audiences 3,500 miles away.

The Railway Children is to be performed in a temporary tented theatre – resembling a railway station – in Toronto, Canada, from May.

The production is based on the 1906 novel by Edith Nesbit which became a box office hit when made into a film, shot on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway in 1970.

The Canadian play has been inspired by the critically-acclaimed stage version, shown at London’s redundant Eurostar station, which attracted an audience of 165,000 people during its run last year.

Robert Richardson, of Canadian producers Marquis Ent, said they had been inspired to perform the show by the London production.

He said: “We went to see it and were astonished by the way the story was presented, the staging and the venue.

“The original film was intimately familiar with many Canadian people, although to others it was entirely new.” The production will be staged in Toronto’s Roundhouse Park, home to the Toronto Railway Historical Association, in a temporary 1,000 seat theatre from May 3 for 26 weeks.

The audience will be separated by a line of train track and will get an up-close look at a 60-tonne vintage steam locomotive.

Keighley & Worth Valley Railway spokesman Jim Shipley said: “Like the London stage version, which has boosted our visitor numbers, this is bound to increase our profile in Canada.

“We do already get visitors from all over the world, but this will put the spotlight on the railway and on Haworth generally.” He said that passenger numbers on the five-mile line from Keighley to Oxenhope surged by seven per cent between April and October, 2010 – a year that was also the railway’s 40th anniversary.