Following in classic tracks

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN RETURN Director: Morgan Matthews

Cast: Jenny Agutter, Sheridan Smith, Beau Gadsdon, KJ Aikens, Austin Haynes, Eden Hamilton, Zac Cudby, John Bradley Rating: (PG) ★★★

It’s not entirely clear who The Railway Children Return (Rialto, Metro) is meant to appeal to. A legacy sequel to the 1970 children’s classic, itself an adaptation of E. Nesbit’s 1905 novel, it flits uneasily between trying to please devotees of the original, who must be well into their sixties by now, and a new generation of younger viewers likely more attuned to Disney product than to wellbehaved evocations of England’s past.

In any case, it’s more or less a standalone kids’ adventure, with Jenny Agutter’s character of Bobbie Waterbury, now a grandmother and still living near the

Oakworth railway station, being the main link between the two films, although given the title, you know that trains are going to feature quite prominently yet again.

Set in 1944, after another series of bombings in Manchester, parents are forced to send their children to rural areas to be temporarily adopted until it’s safe to return home. Mirroring the earlier story, three siblings, Lily, Pattie and Ted Watts, travel by train to Oakworth to be taken in by Bobbie, who lives with daughter Annie (Sheridan Smith), also the local schoolmistress, and grandson Thomas.

Before long, the four children get caught up in a notverysuspenseful tale involving a black American soldier they discover hiding in an abandoned train carriage, thereby learning that racism from their own side is as much the enemy as the Nazis are. It’s an attempt to mix contemporary issues with an otherwise strictly oldfashioned sensibility that just barely succeeds.