POP Idol judge and rail enthusiast Pete Waterman today wished the National Railway Museum all the best in its bid to buy The Flying Scotsman - but said he wished tycoon Sir Richard Branson had been as keen to buy the famous train when he co-owned it.

Pete, who was in York to open Arriva Trains Northern's £250,000 refurbished control centre, said he obviously had not been as good a salesman when he was looking to offload the historic locomotive as the York-based museum had since proved to be.

It was revealed today that Sir Richard had backed the museum's campaign to bring the Scotsman to York. Sir Richard pledged his support and made an undisclosed donation to the appeal.

The deadline for bids is on Friday, and while the museum appeal last week topped £350,000, the train is expected to sell for between £1 million and £2.5 million.

Mr Waterman once co-owned the loco, but said it nearly drove him to the brink of financial disaster, and described it as being a "poisoned chalice."

He said: "Good old Richard. He didn't seem to want it when I wanted to flog it, but I'm obviously not as good a salesman as the NRM."

Arriva's new control centre, which uses state-of-the-art plasma screens, will allow the company to react more quickly to unscheduled hitches and emergencies as they arise on the line. It will also mean they can analyse things that go wrong and develop ways to avoid a repeat of any problems.

Mr Waterman said of the centre: "It's mind-blowing. This is the way things should be on the railways."

Commenting on the appeal, a museum spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that Sir Richard Branson has offered his help. We remain optimistic that, with the continued support of the public, we can secure this historic locomotive for the nation and keep it running on Britain's railways."

Sir Richard said: "We feel very, very strongly that the train should not be allowed to go overseas and we are willing to make an offer with the National Railway Museum to the owners, which I believe will be a conditional offer on the basis that it doesn't go to tender and that there is no risk of the train going abroad.

"We will be putting our offer on the table tomorrow and we would hope that it would be substantive enough to stop it going to tender.

"Also we know that there would be enormous pressure by the public to get the Government to stop it going abroad."

The museum was unable to reveal any details of its negotiations, the spokeswoman added.

Updated: 13:14 Monday, March 29, 2004