MUSEUM bosses face an anxious weekend before they learn if they have been shortlisted for one of Britain's biggest arts prizes.

Locomotion: The National Railway Museum, in Shildon, County Durham, will hear on Tuesday if it has made it to the finals of the Gulbenkian Museum of the Year Awards.

The museum is the only one in the region to have been shortlisted.

It is among ten museums across the country trying to reach the final four of the competition, including a community project on the island of North Uist, a restored pit in south Wales and the reworked Transport Museum in Coventry.

The multi-million pound venture, a partnership between Sedgefield Borough Council and the National Railway Museum, has proved to be a huge success since it opened last September, bringing almost 100,000 visitors to the region.

Sedgefield's director of leisure services, Phil Ball, said: "It is now nearly a fortnight since the judges visited Locomotion and it's been a long wait."

Yesterday, the musuem welcomed the arrival of a Mark I Crusader tank, which now sits on a Warflat rail wagon built in 1943.

The tank is the first of several exhibits expected to make their way to the museum in the coming weeks.

Other attractions due to arrive include the 1922 North Staffordshire Railway Locomotion No 2, which has not left Staffordshire since 1969.

George Muirhead, museum manager said that nerves were starting to show as the Gulbenkian announcement approached.

He said: "There's a great feeling of anticipation and we would really like to know.

"We are all sitting here with fingers crossed hoping that it is good news.''