A NORTH-EAST museum last night missed out on winning the UK's largest single arts prize.

Locomotion: the National Railway Museum at Shildon, County Durham, was one of four finalists competing for the £100,000 Gulbenkian Prize for Museum of the Year.

It lost out to the Big Pit in Blaenafon, South Wales, a coal mine that has been turned into a museum staffed by former miners.

Bosses at Locomotion, which opened last September as a joint venture between Sedgefield Borough Council and the National Railway Museum, said last night they were disappointed but proud to have got so far.

Its manager, George Muirhead, said: "Locomotion is just at the beginning of its life and we have much more still to do, so to have come this far in such a short space of time is tremendously promising.

"I'd like to thank all those involved in helping the museum build its reputation to such a high standard and to reiterate that we should not feel disheartened, but thrilled to have gained the acknowledgement that Locomotion is an exceptional achievement."

Andrew Scott, head of the National Railway Museum (NRM), said: "Although we are understandably disappointed at not having won the arts prize, we are nevertheless extremely proud to have made it to the final four, and to have received the recognition that the museum deserves.

"The NRM team who developed the concept and the Sedgefield team now operating the museum deserve all our congratulation for their achievement.

"Locomotion has established itself as a top-class family attraction and the hard work we have put in has not been wasted."