The last surviving coach from the historic Liverpool Overhead Railway has become the first of 6,000 exhibits to take up residence at the new Museum of Liverpool.

Work is now underway on the internal fit out of the new attraction - one of the largest, newly-built museums to be developed in the UK for more than a century, with Coach No. 3 the first object to be integrated into display. The vehicle will be displayed as part of a reconstructed Pier Head station and is accompanied by archive footage filmed from the overhead railway in 1897 by the Lumière Brothers.

Coach No. 3 - presented to National Museums Liverpool in 1956 after the overhead railway shut - is also sited above a gallery examining the city's history and how it became one of the most important ports in the world. Museum of Liverpool executive director Sharon Granville said: "A lot of planning has gone into the display of the motor coach due to its sheer size, weight and rarity.

"The building has been designed to house this object and we have purposely left a large gap in the gallery wall in order to move the carriage in." The new 8,000sq m (86,111sq ft) museum is scheduled to open next year.