HOPES soared tonight that York’s famous National Railway Museum will be saved from possible closure.

MPs emerged from a showdown meeting with culture minister Ed Vaizey convinced that threatened funding cuts will be less severe than first feared.

And Mr Vaizey was reported to have described closure of a sister museum – the National Media Museum, in Bradford – as a “non-starter”.

The Science Museum Group warned one of three Northern museums it runs would have to be axed, if Chancellor George Osborne pressed ahead with ten per cent cuts.

That pitched the National Railway Museum -  which has an outpost at Shildon in County Durham called Locomotion - into a battle for survival with its sister in Bradford and with the Museum of Science and Industry, in Manchester.

But, faced with a fierce backlash, the department for culture, media and sport (DCMS) is believed to have a struck a deal with the Treasury to escape the worst of the cuts.

It is now expected that museums and art galleries will lose only five per cent of their budgets - half that faced by other Government departments in the spending settlement, on June 26.

The Treasury is also expected to allow them to borrow up to £40m per year, to invest in future growth, and have greater freedom to spend their reserves.

Some of the likely settlement was set out by Mr Vaizey last night, although the full details of the package is still under wraps.