The focus for many visitors during the Railway in Wartime weekend is Pickering, the starting point for trains steaming along the line to Levisham, Goathland, Grosmont and, finally Whitby.

TENS of thousands of visitors, many of them dressed in period costume and uniforms, descend on the town as it is transported back in time to 1943.

The parade has always been the biggest draw in Pickering and for the first time this year, there are two parades, with a civilian vehicle parade and foot parade being held on Saturday and a military vehicle parade on Sunday.

Both vehicle parades will start from Pickering Showground.

Saturday’s parade leaves the showground at 10.45am with the foot parade leaving Pickering Junior School at 10.47am.

The vehicle parade leaves the showground, then snakes across the roundabout, up Smiddy Hill, down Market Place, then round Hungate where some cars will come back through town and park in Pickering.

The foot parade leaves the junior school and runs down Bridge Street, straight across the crossroads up Market Place, down Smiddy Hill, turning left up Hallgarth where it falls out.

North York Moors Railway general manager Philip Benham and Pickering mayor William Oxley will take the salute, and the parade will feature many groups of re-enactors, regiments, Land Girls, civilians and veterans, plus some faces from the era.

Sunday’s military vehicle parade will follow the same route as Saturday’s civilian vehicle parade, leaving the showground at 10.55am.

Market Place will be closed on Saturday and Sunday, 8am-6pm, and Park Street will be closed both days, 10am-4pm. Signed diversions will be in place and parking suspensions will be in place on both streets for both days during the road closures.

Meanwhile, many of Pickering’s shopkeepers, restaurateurs and café owners will get into the spirit of 1943 by donning 1940s clothing, selling wartime dishes, snacks and clothing, and dressing their windows in the style of the era, some even taping them up in preparation for air raids.