MEMBERS of the South Tynedale Railway Preservation Society have been awarded a £35,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to help restore a locomotive.
The German-built Henschel 0-4-0 steam locomotive No 6 Thomas Edmondson was one of a large number that were built for the German Army during the First World War.
It is the only one in existence which can be restored to working order in its original condition.
After the war, the locomotive was sold to the Spanish military, which used it in the Riff campaign.
It also played its part in the Spanish Civil War, before being sold to a colliery in northern Spain, from which the South Tynedale Preservation Society bought it in 1984.
The locomotive entered service on the South Tynedale Railway, at Alston, on the Cumbrian side of the border with County Durham.
It was named Thomas Edmondson after the inventor of the card-ticketing system at Milton on the Newcastle-to- Carlisle line.
The society's engineering department will complete the restoration.
The public will have access to the workshops in Alston while the society's engineering department completes the restoration.
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