North Star (in this context) is the name of an early Great Western Railway steam locomotive. The engine was
built in 1837 and the GWR's first successful locomotive, was preserved at Swindon works until 1906, but then broken up. Less than twenty years later ... [a] replica was built at Swindon for the Stockton & Darlington Railway centenary celebrations of 1925, and consists to a large extent of original parts re-assembled. She is now in the Great Western Railway Museum, Swindon.
(Source: P.J.G. Ransom, The Archaeology of Railways, 1981, p.174.)
appears in:
"Red Brick Dream" (now on The Big Express)