A piece of British railway history will be returning to action with a special journey to Cumbria.

When the Flying Scotsman sets off for a trip from Manchester to Carlisle in January it’ll be the train’s first mainline run in more than a decade.

The steam legend is being put back on a mainline route after undergoing a £4.2m restoration project led by the National Railway Museum.

Built in 1923, the famous locomotive is to take on the challenging Settle and Carlisle line in a test run departing from Manchester Victoria and picking up passengers in Bolton and Preston on January 23.

The journey – dubbed the Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express – has been planned by the Railway Touring Company.

Jim Lowe, head of operations at the National Railway Museum, said: “As a national museum, we are committed to ensuring that as many people as possible can enjoy our remarkable collections.

“Along with all our generous supporters for this complex project, we have all been looking forward to the day when Flying Scotsman is once again running on Britain’s tracks and can be enjoyed by the thousands of people who will ride behind it and catch a glimpse as it travels past.

“This West Coast Main Line test run will really put Scotsman, the oldest working locomotive on the mainline, through its paces and once it is complete we will be one step closer to a new era in its colourful history.”

For the preview run the Flying Scotsman will still be in its black undercoat and will not yet carry its number 60103. But once this initial trip is completed it will return to the workshop to be transformed into its new green guise.

Mr Lowe added: “Working closely with the team at Riley & Son Ltd we have chosen locations that cover a large proportion of the UK, the north, the south, the east and west, so it can be seen in as many places as possible.”

The Railway Touring Company’s managing director Nigel Dobbing said: “Flying Scotsman is the sole survivor of Sir Nigel Gresley’s A3 class of locomotives.

“We are very excited indeed that this steam legend’s mainline preview is to be our Winter Cumbrian Mountain Express day tour on January 23.”

The firm is organising a number of mainline steam day tours with Flying Scotsman in 2016 and details are due to be announced shortly.