A FILM star loco is looking every bit the screen siren as its cosmetic restoration is almost complete.

The locomotive from the 1970 British family drama The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins, is being restored at Locomotion, the National Railway Museum at Shildon.

GWR No 5775 is getting a makeover at the museum’s workshop while on loan from its home on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

Workshop manager Richard Pearson has gone to great lengths to colour match the livery, created specifically for the film, and contractor Ian Matthews is putting the finishing touches in place reinstating the lining and lettering by hand.

Once the restoration is complete the locomotive, built in the 1940s but painted to look older for the film, will be on display from Saturday, October 18 until early 2015.

It will feature in Locomotion’s Durham Book Festival events and October half-term activities based on the film and Edith Nesbit’s book and will include traditional dressing up for children, games and arts and crafts.

The museum hopes to recruit volunteers with skills and experience in light engineering or cosmetic restoration to help with the No 5775 project, for details email peter.shields@nrm.org.uk or call 01388-777999.