Writer Simon Nye is adapting the story for Carlton Television to mark next year's 30th anniversary of the film's release.

E Nesbitt's story, first published in 1906, centres on a family who go to live near a railway line when their father is wrongly branded as a spy and jailed.

Carlton head of drama Jonathan Powell said: "It is one of the great classic children's books and we feel the time is right to return to it."

But a spokesman for the ITV broadcaster said: "It is too early to think about casting or locations. We haven't even got a director yet.

"We had such success with our family drama Goodnight Mr Tom, that we thought the time was right for another one for the millennium. And they don't come much more 'family' than The Railway Children.

'Genuine affection' for book

Nye, whose script is due to be delivered during the summer, said: "I'm giving this project top priority. I have always wanted to adapt a book for television and like most other people share a geniune affection for The Railway Children.

"What I really want to create is something I could sit down and watch with children, something that will capture the imagination."

Nye is best known for laddish comedy Men Behaving Badly, which started life on ITV in 1992 before becoming a hit on BBC One. His other credits include Frank Stubbs Promotes and My Wonderful Life for ITV, and The Last Salute for the BBC.

Filmed on the preserved Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in Yorkshire, the original Railway Children has become a perennial Christmas favourite.

Among its stars were Jenny Agutter - who went on to appear in An American Werewolf in London and Logan's Run - and Sally Thomsett, who later starred in sitcom Man About The House.