A NEW exhibition featuring legendary trains of the steam age - including Stephenson's Rocket - has opened in York.

The historic Rocket joined the Brass Steel and Fire exhibition at the National Railway Museum, where it will be on display for at least a decade.

The locomotive, designed by Robert Stephenson, ran on the world's first inter-city passenger railway in 1830.

Judith McNicol, director of the National Railway Museum, said: “Rocket joins the museum as a potent symbol of what can be achieved through science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

“It will inspire new generations of visitors to pursue their own futures in engineering.

“It will also represent one of the first signs that our ambitious Vision 2025 plan, to transform the museum, is becoming a reality.”

For the first time in 20 years, the locomotive has travelled to York to complete the final leg of a national tour of UK museums.

It will join others such as Mallard and the Flying Scotsman in the museum’s exhibition.

Other highlights of Brass, Steel and Fire include the world’s oldest working model steam engine made in 1836 by Thomas Greener, aged just 16.

Thomas became an engineer after working as an apprentice at Shildon Works.

The model is based on a full-size stationary winding engine that would have been used on the Stockton and Darlington Railway to haul coal wagons.

The exhibition also features a very early example of a working toy engine named Pilot.

Other models include prototype model, Topsy, on loan from the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales. This locomotive played an important role in the development and adoption of narrow-gauge railways.

Brass, Steel and Fire is supported by Hornbeam Park Developments and players of the People’s Postcode Lottery.

The exhibition opened yesterday and tells the story of the first 100 years of railway models.