THE names of 2,500 York railway workers who died during the First World War are to be saved from decades of erosion on one of the city’s most famous memorials.

A £30,000 rescue project will see the names of the fallen soldiers carved on to large brass plaques and mounted on the masonry wall to the right-hand-side of the Railway War Memorial at the top of Station Rise.

BRB (residual), formerly the British Railways Board, is funding the work and said it had consulted with City of York Council, English Heritage and the Railway Ex-serviceman’s Association about the metre-and -a-half high plaques and “so far the responses have all been positive”.

John Clarke, director of structures at BRB (residual), said: “We are hopeful the work, if approved, will be completed in spring 2011 and the plaques will be dedicated before the Remembrance Day Service on November 11 next year.

Last year, The Press revealed many of the ex-servicemen’s names had been rendered unreadable after years of being exposed to the North Yorkshire weather.

At the time, Mr Clarke said re-carving the names on the monument “was not an option” because of fears the process would expose softer stone underneath – accelerating the erosion process.

The monument is one of many around Britain designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and the erosion only affects the names of soldiers from the First World War, because the Second World War names were carved on slate panels. Mr Clarke said a “master list” of all the First World War names had now been drawn up from the three separate records which can be found around the city.

Mr Clarke said listed building consent and scheduled monument consent had been sought from the council and English Heritage.