RAILWAY enthusiast Chris Savory stunned his girlfriend by climbing onto its footplate of the Flying Scotsman and proposing to her.

In a well-kept secret arrangement at Pickering Station, after the final service of the day from Grosmont, the 23-year-old heritage line volunteer went down on one knee amid the smoke and steam to ask Laura Thurlow, his partner of five years, to marry him.

Scores of onlookers crowded on to the platform and cheered as an emotional Miss Thurlow accepted a diamond ring from fellow sandwich-maker Mr Savory.

The 22-year-old said: "It was a complete surprise and has left me shaking like a leaf. When he went down on one knee I thought he had dropped his phone.

"He had been joking all week that he was going to see a man about a cat, so when he told me he had a surprise for me, I thought I was getting a kitten."

Mr Savory, who drives narrow gauge engines and works on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway line's locomotives whenever he has the chance, said the opportunity to propose on the footplate of the world famous engine had been too good to miss.

He said he had been incredibly nervous as he waited with his mother and Miss Thurlow on the platform as the locomotive trundled into the station at 25mph, 15 minutes behind schedule.

Mr Savory added: "It is a unique engine with the first recorded 100mph run and it's great to see it finally running again on what is five years to the day since we started dating."

The heritage railway line's commercial operations manager, Paul Brown, said the proposal had been the icing on the cake to what had been a hugely memorable weekend for thousands of visitors and the line's 400-strong team of volunteers.