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Full steam ahead for railway
It's full steam ahead at the Bowes Railway Museum, where a historic locomotive was handed over and a new passenger platform was unveiled.
The loco, an Andrew Barclay saddle tank, has been on loan from British Gypsum since 1981, but the firm has now given it to the historic railway.
The opening of the new platform was carried out by Andy Kluz from Tyne Tees TV.
Phillip Dawe, the railway's chairman, said: "We needed a new platform because the old one was overdue for replacement. It's long enough to take our longest train and built of galvanised steel so it will last."
He added that it also made access easier for parents with children in buggies and it was safer because it was wider than the old platform.
The saddle tank was one of the last steam locomotives built by Barclay's.
It was delivered to the Long Meg works of the Long Meg Plaster and Mineral Co Ltd at Lazonby, near Penrith, Cumbria, on June 10, 1954.
The locomotive, very sophisticated for its day, was named WST after William Steuart Trimble, the plaster company's deputy chairman.
A passenger train hauled by WST 2361 with its olive green livery gave guests at the ceremony a taste of travel from times past.
The railway, at Springwell Village, Washington, is the only working preserved standard gauge rope-hauled railway in the world.
It was originally a colliery railway built to carry coal mainly from pits in north west Durham to the Tyne at Jarrow.
The earliest section was designed by rail pioneer George Stephenson and opened in 1826, making it one of the world's first modern railways.
It was 15 miles long when completed in 1855.
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Weather for Sunderland
Thursday 09 February 2012
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