This massive sculpture was commissioned and created by David Mach way back in 1997. The reason behind it was to celebrate the rich railway heritage of Darlington. It was modeled after the 1938 126mph steam locomotive “Mallard”.

185,000 numbers of bricks, 170 cubic meters of concrete, weighing 15,000 tons, covering and area of 600 square meters. This hollow brick train sculpture measures 23 ft high by 130 ft long. It took 21 weeks to finish by a team of 34 brick layers and laborers. Oddly enough, there are even 20 special 'bat bricks' to urge bats to use it as their base. A number of time capsules donated by local schools were placed inside the train.

First and 2nd photo from daverob, 3rd from flickrhivemind, 4th from imageblog, 5th photo from guardian.