Historic warhorse Maude finds peaceful new home

And as the steam locomotive Maude chugged in to York's National Railway Museum yesterday, staff didn't waste a minute in cleaning off the muck accumulated from nearly 100 years of dedicated service.

The engine, which was built in 1915 and sent to the Western Front in France soon after, was named after a famous military leader of the day, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, in honour of the work she did ferrying weapons and provisions along allied lines until the end of the Great War.

She returned to Britain where she worked hauling goods trains before being requisitioned by the British government during the Second World War.

Maude was retired from service in 1966 and saved from the scrapheap by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society as the sole surviving example of her kind.

She has now been loaned to the National Railway Museum where she will be put on display for the next three years.

Director Steve Davies said: "We are utterly delighted that she has come here.

"Maude is a train that has been at the forefront of British history throughout the last century.

"It is a real coup."