Pickering Station is the starting point for most people’s journey along the and it will be action-packed all weekend.

AT 11.15am on Friday, Philip Benham, general manager of the NYMR, hands the railway over to the military to mark the start of the Railway in Wartime weekend.

Evacuees will be put on the 10am train from Pickering to Goathland accompanied by members of IVY8 re-enactment group, dressed as ‘Yanks’. They will return at 12.40pm, when they will proceed to Pickering Showground for educational talks.

There will be entertainment throughout the day from a 1940s-style banjo player singing George Formby classics, along with a song written especially for the NYMR, while the café and shops will be open for passengers waiting to depart.

On Saturday and Sunday, there’s a NAAFI on Platform 2, which is only accessible to those in wartime dress, plus ENSA entertainers Lola Lamour and Paul Harper.

There will be a wartime vehicle display in the car park, with military and civilian vehicles, fire engines, guns and a wartime caravan. This area is only accessible through the station with a valid platform pass or train ticket.

On Sunday, a remembrance service is being held on the station at 4.30pm when the railwaymen and women who lost their lives and were injured during the war are honoured. The station is handed back to the NYMR at 4.45pm, marking the end of the event.