A MUSEUM has unveiled a £90,000 piece of artwork which can be operated by text messages sent from all over the world.

The new exhibit was unveiled at Locomotion: National Railway Museum in Shildon, County Durham, yesterday.

The Light Engine, by artist Peter Freeman, is a tower featuring different sequences of coloured lights that can be controlled by text messages.

Visitors to the £11m museum, which opens on Saturday, September 25, can text the name of one of the engines that rail pioneer Timothy Hackworth worked on to see the different sequences.

They can choose from one of six choices, which are Locomotion, Globe, Sans Pareil, Magnet, Arrow or Shildon.

The exhibit has been situated between the old Timothy Hackworth museum and the new Locomotion collections centre, opposite the town's train station, in an attempt to link the old with the new.

Mr Freeman said: "The railways were the computers of the 19th Century. Trains and the railway were important in the way that people communicated through transport. Today, mobile phone systems and computers are the way that people communicate and talk with each other, especially through texting.''

Mr Freeman was one of four artists commissioned to come up with a piece of artwork for the museum.

The four pieces were then displayed and discussed at public meetings in Shildon, before the public chose Mr Freeman's design.

The work was made possible with a grant from the European Regional Development Fund, which was awarded to enhance the site of the museum. A further grant of £4,000 was given by the Arts Council to enable to museum to run the competition which was entered by artists from all over the country.

Published: 14/09/2004