THE last wagon to be built at a former North-East works is returning to the town where it was created.

The Friends of the National Railway Museum North-East branch has bought the Merry-Go-Round (MGR) wagon HDA 368459, which was the last to be completed at the Shildon Wagon Works, in County Durham, before its closure in 1984.

The wagon was purchased at auction and the group is awaiting clearance from its current owners, DB Schenker, before it can be collected from South Wales and brought back to Shildon, where it will go on display at Locomotion: The National Railway Museum.

Dave Camp, chairman of the North-East Friends branch, said: “We were absolutely delighted to get it because we had been trying to get one for a year.

“It is a tribute to Shildon and all the people who used to work at the Shildon shops that the last coal MGR wagon to be built here is returning to its place of creation.

“It is part of Shildon’s heritage and will give visitors an impression of the amount of work that was carried out in the town before the shops closed.

“There is already a wagon at the museum from the 1820s, so people will be able to see how they developed over 150 years.

“We hope to have a display next to it explaining how the wagons were used and we will be enlisting the help of former workers to assess the wagon when it arrives to see if any work needs to be done to it.”

The first wagons to be built at the works carried a tonne of goods and the last could carry up to 32 tonnes.

They were given the name Merry- Go-Round in recognition of the fact that they never stopped moving, as they could still be loaded and unloaded while moving at about half a mile an hour.

􀁧 Jane Hackworth-Young, the great-great-granddaughter of railway engineer Timothy Hackworth, is giving a talk, The Stockton and Darlington Railway Houses, at the group’s meeting at the museum, on Saturday, March 19, at 11.30am.