GUESTS at a museum’s tenth anniversary event will not just include visitors on foot but also those that travel on tracks.

Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, in County Durham, will hold its annual steam gala on Saturday, September 20 and Sunday, September 21.

A host of guest locomotives will feature in the event which is extra special this year as it marks ten years since the region’s only national museum opened.

The first to arrive was Bellerophon which was built in 1874 for the Haydock Collieries and remained in operation for 90 years.

It was one of just six engines built at the Haydock Foundry which, unusually for the time, had outside motion and used piston valves.

It was rescued before being scrapped by the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and is the only one of its class that survived.

In 1981 Bellerophon was bought and restored by the Vintage Carriages Trust, which has loaned it to Locomotion for the gala.

A group of guest locos, ever popular with museum visitors, includes the replica Rocket, Kitson No 5, Hawthorn Leslie No 2 and resident guest Furness Railway No 20.

The annual gala commemorates the age of steam trains and has become a highlight on the museum’s calendar but never more so than on this its tenth year.

Organisers say the attraction has had plenty to celebrate since it opened on a once derelict site in 2004 following a partnership between the former Sedgefield Borough Council, now Durham County Council, and the National Railway Museum at York.

Each year it attracts 200,000 visitors, which hit nearly 300,000 last year and included 8,000 children from surrounding schools, and has won 15 major awards.

It has created 35 jobs, supports a further 74 across the region, works with 69 North East companies and pumps an estimated £3.6m into the local economy a year.

The event will be held in the museum’s Collection Building, from 10am to 5pm both days, and free steam rides will be available throughout the weekend.

Admission and parking at the museum is free, visit the website nrm.org.uk/locomotion for more information.