ALMOST seven years after the £750,000, two-year restoration of the Flying Scotsman began, the bill has topped £2.67 million and work still has not finished.

Now visitors to the National Railway Museum in York will be able to see the refurbishment work taking place in front of them – after the project was taken in-house.

A museum spokeswoman said yesterday that it had been decided to carry out some of the work that would have taken place at Riley & Son (E) Ltd at the museum instead.

“This is great news for our visitors that can see Flying Scotsman in our workshop and witness some of the restoration work first-hand,” she said.

“The initial works being undertaken by the National Railway Museum engineering team include fitting the bogie stretcher, overhauling bogie components, the manufacture and fitting of ash pan components, manufacture and fitting of the cab floor and the overhaul and fitting of the lubrication system.”

She said a new cab radio had also recently been installed and commissioned.

The spokeswoman said the restoration project started in January 2006 and was originally expected to take around 18 to 24 months at a cost of £750,000, but by this June the bill had risen to £2.67 million.

She said: “As previously reported, there were a number of unexpected remedial works which needed to take place earlier this year and there are inevitable cost implications for all remedial work. We aim to have this locomotive operating as swiftly as possible but we have to accept that this comes with a cost implication.”

She said the Science Museum Group was committed to the loco’s restoration and would resource the additional repairs. “We will not be asking the public to make further donations.”

She added that the museum’s acting director, Paul Kirkman, who joins next month, would review the current state of the project and a thorough update on the project would be given to all media in due course.

She said the museum shared the public’s disappointment at the delays, but stressed that projects of this kind were “by their very nature full of complexities and uncertainties”.

She said funders, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, were aware of the challenges and remained very supportive.