ONE OF Bury's most popular attractions - the East Lancashire Railway - can now be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home thanks to virtual reality!

Train enthusiast Chris Baily, a volunteer driver on the line, has created a computer-simulated trip along the Heywood to Rawtenstall line, from the viewpoint of the driver.

And a year after the £15 game first went on sale, Mr Baily has made £12,000 selling the disc all over the world.

All the money made by the game will go towards restoring a diesel locomotive based in Bury, built in the 1950s as a pilot model for British Rail and thought to be the only one of its kind still in existence.

Mr Baily said: "Restoration of the locomotive will cost about £100,000, so I doubt my game will make all that money. We've raised quite a bit so far though, and a steady flow of orders is still coming in.

"My grandad was really into railways, and I picked up that interest. I started going to the East Lancashire Railway when it re-opened in 1991, and the bug really got me. Since then, I've been heavily involved in restoration programmes and driving on the line."

Mr Baily (30), who grew up in Brandlesholme, started working on the project when he moved to Llangollen, in North Wales, with his wife Joanne.

He said: "When I moved to Wales, I had to give up my job and my flat in Bury, and had nothing to do all day. A friend gave me a copy of Microsoft Train Simulator to keep me busy, and I found websites where you can create new trains and routes. That led to me designing a game based on the East Lancashire line.

"I led a team of 10 people to create it, and we took thousands of photographs of the line and the trains to cover every angle.

"I even went out on the trains to record the individual sounds each one makes.

"It was hard work spending eight hours a day in front of a computer for 18 months while we made the game, especially because I had to teach myself as I went along. I'm proud of the final product though, and surprised that it's selling so well. I've had orders from Australia, America, Germany, everywhere really. The majority of orders are from train enthusiasts, but some of them are from people who used to live in Bury or the surrounding area and have since moved abroad."

The game is an add-on piece of software to Microsoft Train Simulator, which players must first install to run the ELR programme.

Mr Baily is now working on a similar project to raise money for the restoration of a locomotive in Crewe.

Graham Vevers, ELR's marketing director, said: "This is an excellent way of promoting the railway and giving an insight into the line."

The East Lancashire Railway add-on pack costs £15 and can be bought from the ELR shop at Bolton Street station or by visiting www.brdw.co.uk/trainsim.