ANOTHER £100,000 is being set aside to push ahead with a project set to make a former rail town a national tourist attraction.

Plans to build a satellite branch of the National Railway Museum, in Shildon, County Durham, are gathering steam.

Already, £4.75m of National Lottery money has been agreed in principle and, tomorrow, Sedgefield borough councillors will decide whether to earmark an extra £100,000 of council cash towards building the centre.

The National Railway Museum's reserve collection of up to 70 vehicles, from coal trucks to royal carriages, will be permanently stored in an building in the town if it gets the final approval.

The £7.5m project will also involve creating a visitors' centre, improving the goods shed, where a Merlin steam engine is housed, and incorporating the Timothy Hackworth Museum into the site.

Shildon was the home of one of railway's founding fathers, Timothy Hackworth, and the town was famed for its carriage manufacturing.

It is anticipated that the museum would attract more than 40,000 visitors a year.

Norman Vaulks, chief executive of Sedgefield Borough Council, said the museum could be ready in 2004.

He said: "We had the wagon works in Shildon and so this project links in with that and all the other railway history in the town.

"It is a feather in our cap. Shildon is not a big place, but it is a big museum, so we are very pleased."

Mr Vaulks said the wagons which would be exhibited in the museum would be gathered from across the country. Many would be on show for the first time.

This week, Darlington Borough Council said it is resubmitting a bid for Lottery funding to give the town's railway centre and museum a £3.5m redevelopment.