THE Flying Scotsman, the world’s most famous railway engine, is due to steam through North Wales.

The locomotive will leave Crewe just before 10am on Friday morning and head along the coast passing Prestatyn an hour later. The next stop will be at Llandudno Junction at 11.30am where it will stay for about an hour giving fans of the locomotive the opportunity of a closer look and a chance to shoot photographs. It then leaves for Holyhead where it is planned to arrive at around 1.30pm.

It is timed to depart from Holyhead at 4.05pm for its return run, but the shorter daylight hours mean when it come back through Prestatyn at about 5.30pm it'll be dark.

On previous occasions enthusiasts have congregated at stations and vantage points along the route to see it steam past.

The Flying Scotsman was originally built in Doncaster for the London and North Eastern Railway emerging from the works in 1923. It was constructed to a design of Sir Nigel Gresley for long distance express trains on the East Coast main line particularly from London to Edinburgh.

It set two world records for steam engines, becoming the first steam locomotive to be officially authenticated at reaching 100 miles per hour in 1934. It subsequently set record for the longest non stop run by a steam locomotive when it ran 422 miles in 1989 in Australia.

The Flying Scotsman was retired from regular service in 1963 after covering 2.08 million miles. It was subsequently restored and undertook tours in the USA and Australia. It is now owned by the National Railway Museum. Wherever it goes it attracts crowds.