THE National Railway Museum has announced record visitor figures for its Railfest extravaganza.

More than 60,000 visitors visited the Leeman Road site over the nine days it was open to see the largest-ever gathering of record- breaking locomotives.

The museum welcomed its busiest ever seven-day turnout during the first week of the event, which opened on Saturday, June 2, and smashed its busiest ever recorded day on Thursday, when more than 9,000 people visited.

Steve Davies, director of the museum, said the efforts of the hundreds of hardworking and passionate volunteers had made the festival a fantastic success.

“We are thrilled that despite the dreadful weather we had so many people visit the museum to be part of Railfest,” he said.

“Railfest 2012 was an enormous success and achieved its aim of being Britain’s biggest rail celebration.

“We definitely plan on holding another Railfest at some point in the future.

“But in the meantime we are already working on all the other exciting events we have in the pipeline for 2013.”

The museum allowed families and train enthusiasts to get close to the exhibits and take part in a wide variety of railway-related activities throughout the festival.

The fleet of 50 locomotives featured the Princess Elizabeth after it took part in the Royal Jubilee Pageant on the Thames in London.

Other stars of the event included Mallard, the fastest steam locomotive in the world, the Brighton Belle brake car, the world’s first electric Pullman and the Mardy Monster, UK’s most powerful industrial steam loco.

Music mogul and former Pop Idol judge Pete Waterman – a keen rail enthusiast who is a patron of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway – was one of several VIP guests who turned up to see the exhibition.