A MUSEUM has unveiled a £90,000 piece of artwork that can be operated by text messages sent from all over the world.

The new exhibit was unveiled at Locomotion: National Railway Museum in Shildon on Monday.

The Light Engine by artist Peter Freeman is a tower featuring different sequences of lights that can be controlled by text messages.

Visitors to the museum, which opens on September 25, can text the name of one of the engines that rail pioneer Timothy Hackworth worked on to see the different sequences. They can choose from Locomotion, Globe, Sans Pareil, Magnet, Arrow or Shildon.

The exhibit is situated between the old Timothy Hackworth museum and the new Locomotion collections centre, in a bid to link the old with the new.

Mr Freeman said: "The railways were the computers of the nineteenth century. Trains and the railway were important in the way that people communicated through transport. Today mobile phone systems and computers are the way that people communicate and talk with each other especially through texting.''

Mr Freeman was one of four artists commissioned to design a piece of artwork for the museum, which were then displayed and discussed at meetings in the town before the public chose Mr Freeman's design.