Museum in cash plea for historic train

Published on Thursday 18 March 2004 00:00

MUSEUM bosses today appealed for donations to keep the Flying Scotsman running on Britain’s railways.

The National Railway Museum in York feared time was running out to raise the funds needed to prevent the world famous locomotive from going abroad.

It was put up for sale after the Edinburgh company which planned to feature it in an exhibition in the city ran into financial trouble.

The museum’s bid today topped 220,000 just two weeks before the deadline to buy the rail icon.

An NRM spokeswoman said: "Sealed bids must be in by April 2 and foreign buyers are expected to be among the museum’s rivals."

A team from the museum were today travelling to London to make a final pre-bid inspection of the 81-year-old locomotive, which was the first in the world officially to break the 100mph barrier in 1934.

Public donations have ranged from 1 to 50,000, with a 25,000 bid from the Friends of the National Railway Museum, and bosses were hoping to convince national funders to back its bid.

Andrew Scott, head of the NRM, said: "The level of support we have received is staggering. This huge groundswell of support tells us that the British public clearly believes, as do we, that such an important part of our railway heritage should belong to the nation.