THE full cost of restoring Flying Scotsman and returning the locomotive to the tracks was £4.5m, it has been revealed.

The National Railway Museum, which bought the 1923-built locomotive, the sole survivor of its class, for £2.3m in 2004, said the cost of the project had soared by £300,000 from what had been estimated last year.

The cost of the scheme, which was supported by £2m in grants and public donations, rose after the final stages of the restoration revealed more remedial work than anticipated was needed to parts of the locomotive that had been thought fit for purpose, coupled with a tight deadline to meet the inaugural run date in February.

Since its high profile return earlier this year, more than 200,000 people have seen Flying Scotsman at the National Railway Museum’s York and Shildon sites, with tens of thousands seeing it on the North York Moors Railway and elsewhere in the country including during a London to York journey.

Museum director Paul Kirkman said: “Since its return, the spectacular sight of this most famous of steam locomotives has captured the imagination and been a life-enhancing experience for thousands, possibly millions of people.”