A PUB landlord and former engineer was one of many to raise a glass last night after Hitachi's plans to bring train building back to the region were announced. Chris Newby was standing in his pub - a few yards from where Locomotion No 1, the world's first passenger steam engine, was loaded on the track - when he heard the news.

The former toolmaker turned his back on a dwindling manufacturing industry to run the pub which bares the historic engine's name.

However, situated just a few hundred yards from where Hitachi will build the next generation of passenger trains, he is one of many poised to reap the benefits of a scheme which could transform the region's fortunes. "It's fantastic news," said Mr Newby who has run the pub for just eight months.

"There are going to be hundreds of construction workers who will need somewhere to go for a pint and their dinners and that's before the plant is open.

"I've lived in Heighington, just up the road, since I was 15 and I'm 41 now.

"I'm an engineer by trade but I have seen the manufacturing disappear and the majority of tool shops have gone with it.

"It's been a while since I was working as a toolmaker but I left manufacturing altogether last June, there was just nothing left, so this is fantastic." Mr Newby's good fortune is by accident rather than design and he admits he didn't even know of the lengthy campaign for Hitachi until recently.

If ever there was a town that needed some good luck it's Newton Aycliffe and yesterday's announcement was the tonic many of its 30,000 residents needed.

Manufacturing was once the lifeblood of the town, and the wider Sedgefield borough, where almost 50 per cent of the workforce were in the industry.

But in recent years Sedgefield's giants like Fujitsu, Schott Glass, Thrislington, Sanyo, Electrolux, Black & Decker, Thorn and Rothmans have cut back or cut lose altogether.

Yesterday Jobcentre Plus had just six manufacturing jobs listed for Aycliffe Business Park which is still the region's second biggest industrial estate.

Newton Aycliffe town centre has suffered too and today much of it is literally in ruin to make way for a redevelopment project first promised more than ten years ago.

While many frustrated townspeople blame the giant Tesco supermarket for the ghost town the empty shops are mirrored by the industrial estate's empty units.

"Hitachi is going to be a big benefit," said Paul Bradley who has run Cardboard Cores, a recycling business on the estate, for about 20 years.

"Lots of factories that have closed down over the years.

"Hopefully the supply chain Hitachi will need means businesses will be coming back and there are plenty of empty premises for them, that's for sure."