HE's helped lay down tracks for the likes of Steps and Kylie, but pop mogul Pete Waterman is coming to Blackburn to master tracks of a different kind.

For the music producer and Pop Idol judge will steam into town on Friday and open the 41st annual exhibition of the Blackburn and East Lancashire's Model Railway Society.

The showpiece - at King George's Hall - will feature hundreds of full scale models charting the history of trains from the Victorian era including fully working versions of the town's rail landmarks such as Daisyfield Junction.

Pete, who restores real life trains, and heads Just Like The Real Thing, a Scotland-based scale train model manufacturer, said: "I have loved toy trains all my life. I'm looking forward to it.

"Blackburn and East Lancashire's Model Railway Society is a well respected club and they do a lot of good modelling."

Publicist and society member, Albert Wilkinson, 62, said: "It is fantastic he is coming - he is well known and respected in the model making fraternity."

The exhibition is open on Friday between 5pm and 9pm, Saturday 10am to 6pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm.