THE theatre tent for York Theatre Royal's summer residency at the National Railway Museum has arrived from Canada.

Museum and theatre staff gathered on Monday to greet the containers shipped from Toronto, where the canvas canopy was used in Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden's Canadian production in 2011.

The tent, which seats almost 1,000, will be used for Bridget Foreman and Mike Kenny's new community play on York's railway history, In Fog and Falling Snow, and the latest revival of Kenny's 2008 adaptation of E Nesbit's The Railway Children.

The Theatre Royal is to take up residency at the museum in Leeman Road while Britain's longest-standing regional theatre undergoes a £4.1 million refurbishment, beginning in mid-March.

The July 31 to September 5 run will be the third time that the theatre and the museum have collaborated on The Railway Children after the earlier productions of 2008 and 2009 in a transformed freight depot with a capacity of 500.

The Railway Children tells the story of how the comfortable lives of three Edwardian children, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, are shattered when their father is arrested on suspicion of betraying state secrets.

The children and their mother move from London to a modest cottage near a railway in the Yorkshire countryside. New friendships, adventures and terrifying dangers await, but the mystery remains: where is father and will he ever be coming back?

Originally published in 1906, The Railway Children is the most famous of Edith Nesbit’s novels.The story was made into a film in 1970 featuring Jenny Agutter, Sally Thomsett, Gary Warren, Dinah Sheridan and Bernard Cribbins, when it was first given a Yorkshire setting, filmed on location on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

The summer's first show, In Fog And Falling Snow, will run fromJune 26 to July 11, taking place around the museum’s collection before moving to the tent for the second half in a community production co-directed by Damian Cruden, Theatre Royal associate director Juliet Forster and Pilot Theatre associate director Katie Posner.

Jim Lowe, the NRM's head of operations, says: "Having this massive tent delivered is an exciting milestone in this project and it’s starting to feel very real now. The 2008 and 2009 productions at York and also those in Toronto and London's Waterloo Station sold out and we're looking forward to welcoming this world-class show back home in July."

This summer's production will feature of the biggest guest stars to take to the stage: Pannier Tank 5775, the steam locomotive that appeared in the original film of The Railway Children in 1970. Perennial pantomime favourite Martin Barrass will reprise his 2009 role as station master Albert Perks.

Tickets for both plays are on sale on 01904 623568, online at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or in person at the Theatre Royal box office.