A STEAM engine which was built in Horwich in the 1950s has been brought back to life and christened the ‘Lancashire Lazarus’.

The locomotive, numbered 76084, is the youngest of 10 surviving engines and was built at the Horwich Works in 1957. It has cost £750,000 to restore, and is housed at the North Norfolk Railway.

And for those who worked on building and maintaining the engine, there is an opportunity to travel on it from Bury next Saturday morning, March 4.

But before then, enthusiasts can see the locomotive on the main line tomorrow – for the first time since 1967, when it will help pull 10 carriages and passengers on a journey, which starts in Preston, stopping in Wigan before heading to Manchester Victoria, Stockport Buxton and Sheffield before returning via Blackburn.

The 100 tonne engine and tender was rescued after 15 years from a Barry Island scrapyard by a rail enthusiast who could not bear to see it destroyed. Steam fan and retired train driver Melvin Thorley said: “The man who bought it in 1983 for £7,500, stuck it in his back garden in Retford, but when he died, his wife sold it to a rail group in Blackburn, who spent their time and money bringing the engine back to life.

“The engine itself is not big enough to pull so many carriages, so the plan is for two locomotives to meet each other close to Heaton Norris, where the 76084 will then pull the train into Stockport and via Buxton across the Pennines to Sheffield and back.”

Horwich Works, which began production in 1886 for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR), produced many hundreds of locomotives, up until it closed in the late 1960s, although other rolling stock continued to be built there up until the 1980s.

An appeal has been made for former Horwich workers who worked on the locomotive from 1957 to 1967, to attend an event next Saturday, on the Bury (Bolton Street platform), at 9.20am, with a chance not only to travel from Bury on the East Lancs line to Rawtenstall aboard carriages pulled by the 76084, but with an opportunity to travel on the footplate.

For more details contact Eric Bond on 07986 559777.