PLANS for a £35m railway heritage attraction described as an "ambitious and imaginative opportunity" have taken a step forward.
Council leaders are being asked to use £14m to £15m on the Darlington Rail Heritage Quarter (DRHQ).
An "immersive ride experience" usually only seen at theme parks is promised for the multi-million-pound scheme.
Council reports estimate it will attract almost 370,000 visits per year.
The project is aiming for completion in time for the bicentennial anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway in 2025.
Councillor Heather Scott, leader of the Darlington Borough Council, told a cabinet meeting: "This is one of the most ambitious and imaginative opportunities to put Darlington on the world map and celebrate our heritage and its culture.
"We're working with others in the region and further afield to make 2025 bicentenary celebrations, both nationally and internationally, a place to visit."
Read more: Plans for Rail Heritage Quarter in Darlington revealed
The total cost of the project is £34m to £35m.
The plans include repairing and restoring the goods shed with "an immersive visitor digital media experience and a Hologauze projection of locomotives".
The North Road station building, which houses the Head of Steam Museum, will be "refreshed" to offer a "rich visitor experience".
The "enticing visuals" will include augmented and virtual reality installations and "hands-on interactive exhibits".
The cabinet report says: "The most memorable encounter of all within the museum is likely to be the Black Box experience, an extraordinarily vivid immersion into passenger rail travel from 1825 to the present day (if not also the future), and the extraordinary impact it had across societies and cultures around the world."
Currently under development, this may include a "4D cinema type experience" with moving seats.
People will be charged for this experience, but the museum as a whole will be free.
The attraction will also include the carriage works housing exhibitions of locomotives, an archive store, study centre and reading rooms, a live steam engineering building, a restored 1861 shed and a link to the mainline with the opportunity for steam train rides, and a "must-see play area".
Visitors will be able "experience the sights and sounds of Victorian Darlington".
The cabinet report says: “Darlington Rail Heritage Quarter is a major project that invests in our rail heritage ahead of the bicentennial anniversary in 2025 to create a national visitor destination in Darlington.
“The development will transform the DRHQ into a major visitor attraction by 2024 so that it can be a central part of the bicentenary events of the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) in 2025.
“Essential improvements will be undertaken to a number of significantly historic buildings on the site, linking them together to create a cluster of attractions including the Skerne Bridge, the oldest working railway bridge in the world.
“Digital and technological investment will bring history to life and there will be a new immersive ride experience only seen at theme parks.
“The DRHQ will have a café and shop, themed play area, show field a new live engineering building, temporary exhibition space, archive and extended car parking, all of which attract all generations to visit for years to come.
“The site will be a key venue for the 2025 bicentenary anniversary events, which will put Darlington and the wider region on the world map and build strong foundations for the new DRHQ, demonstrating the council’s commitment to valuing our heritage and culture.
"It will tell the story of a place, a time and range of people that brought together unique combinations of existing ideas and technologies and new solutions that combined the ingenuity and determination of engineers, entrepreneurs, financiers, surveyors, builders, navies, and countless unnamed individuals who gave their knowledge, expertise and faith to a great, world-changing endeavours."
The DRHQ will focus on Darlington's "global innovation" in the birth of the modern railway through to the modern day leading to regeneration and investment with the railway's enduring influence.
It will "create an aweinspiring, memorable ‘sense of place’ and the realisation that ‘it happened here'".
Councillors released about £20m of funding from the Tees Valley Combined Authority in January 2020.
The plans for a “game-changer” railway tourist attraction featuring holograms and a theme park-style trip through time were unveiled last October.
The free museum would use “virtual augmented reality” including holograms of trains coming in and out, busts of rail pioneers George Stephenson and Edward Pease talking to each other, “talking portraits” and “a mirror where you’ll see yourself transported on to Victorian station”.
A key paid-for element – a Disneyworld or Universal Studios theme park-type ride where groups will be taken through the ages – was being developed.
The cabinet was agreed to recommend the council approve and release funds.
These are £9.75m from grants and contributions from external bodies and capital funding, including £1.6m from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and £300,000 from the Arts Council England if applications are successful.
The council will also be asked to note the use of £4.6m from the Towns Fund.
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