RUSTING metal and rotting wood has been restored into important and historic transport relics  since 1991 by the Furness Railway Trust.

How the heritage locomotives and carriages have been painstakingly brought back into working order was described by trust chairman Tim Owen.

He was speaking at the autumn conference of the Cumbrian Railways Association held at the Lancaster House Hotel, at Lancaster University.

The first and most challenging task was the rebuilding of the steam locomotive Furness Railway No 20.

No 20 was delivered by makers the Sharp, Stewart Company on August 21 in 1863 and worked for the Furness Railway until 1870, before being coverted into a saddle tank industrial locomotive for use at the iron and steelworks in Barrow.

It was retired to Barrow's George Hastwell School as a large piece of play equipment from 1960 to 1983 and was eventually bought for a £5,000 as a pile of parts from the former Steamtown at Carnforth.

The help celebrate the 150 th anniversary of the Barrow-based Furness Railway in 1996 it was decided to put the locomotive back on the rails - with the help of £97,500 from the Science Museum and the National Lottery.

A small Furness Railway Trust team carried out restoration over an eight-and-a-month period in the engine shop at Barrow shipyard.

Mr Owen said: "We wanted to make it a running locomotive."

By the summer of 1999 it had been boiler tested and run under its won steam power at the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway.

He said: "The Victorians knew how to build a beautiful locomotive."

The trust and its workshops are now based at the Preston Steam Railway and its restored items are often on loan to preserved steam railways all over the country - and for use in films and TV shows.

No 20 is currently undergoing a 20-year overhaul and repaint in the heated workshop which cost close to £200,000.

Another major restoration for the trust was the former Great Western Railway tank engine 5643 which came out of scrapyard in Wales and sat in a car park for 20 years.

A National Lottery grant of £49,500 helped restore  a rare North London Railway second class carriage.

One of the latest projects is work to restore another former Furness Railway steam locomotive which for many years stood in the grounds of Stone Cross, Ulverston, when it was a school.