Beamish Museum is hoping to salvage the August Bank Holiday weekend for lovers of steam planning to head to the North-East for the now cancelled rail carnival.

Bosses at the County Durham open air museum are in talks with tour operators who had parties booked to visit the scheduled Millennium Cavalcade of Steam, on the original Darlington to Stockton line, and visit Beamish during the last weekend in August.

They fear that with the event hitting the buffers, tour groups may cancel the entire trip.

The museum hopes other steam-related attractions can be added to the Beamish experience, harking back to the early heritage of the region.

"It's obviously fairly short notice, but we are trying to get some extra steam attractions on site in the hope that it will prove of interest to people who had been looking forward to the steam cavalcade.

"Obviously we are not going to get the top 40 steam locos in by the end of August, but we are trying to salvage the weekend in some form for steam enthusiasts," a spokesman said.