THE FLYING Scotsman will help celebrate the reopening of the Settle to Carlisle railway line after a year of repairs.

The iconic loco will be one of the first trains to make the full journey to Carlisle during its visit to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in April.

It will complete a return trip from Oxenhope, on the same day Arriva Northern’s regular, diesel passenger service resumes journeys.

The railway was closed at the Cumbria end, from Eden Brows, after severe weather events of winter 2015-16 culminated in a landslide.

The last train passed through to Carlisle in February last year. Since then, there has been a replacement bus service operating at the northern end of the line.

When the line was constructed in the 1870s the Midland Railway surveyors had a difficult task in deciding the best route through the Eden gorge.

Almost 150 years later, their modern counterparts at Network Rail constructed a massive concrete and steel tunnel-like structure that sits beneath the railway, 70 metres above the River Eden. This provides a stable base across the damaged and unstable ground.

The multi-million pound project has taken over a year to complete and will safeguard the railway for generations to come.