SR West Country class 21C127 Taw Valley
21C127 Taw Valley is a Southern Railway West Country class steam locomotive that has been preserved. It is currently under overhaul on the Severn Valley Railway.
History
No. 21C127 was built in April 1946 at the SR's Brighton Works and was named Taw Valley, its name being taken from the River Taw in Devon. She was originally allocated to Ramsgate, followed by Exmouth Junction in 1947. In 1948, when British Railways was formed, she was renumbered from 21C127 to 34027. Taw Valley was rebuilt in 1957, when its casing was removed, into its current shape. It was, shortly after, re-allocated to Bricklayer's Arms, and then Brighton in 1961 and Salisbury in 1963, where she was to remain working for BR until August 1964 when she was withdrawn from service and towed to Barry Scrapyard.Naming
Taw Valley was named after the valley made by the river that flows through Devon and Dartmoor. It was one of thirty-six "West Country" light pacifics to be named but not have a coat of arms applied during its service days. The coat of arms that she currently wears with her nameplate was added in preservation in 2015, following the completion of an overhaul in the same year.Preservation
It was rescued for preservation in 1980 by Bert Hitchen and was moved away from Barry Scrapyard on Barry Island to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, where restoration began. She was later moved to the East Lancashire Railway, and was moved again in August 1985 to the Severn Valley Railway, where restoration continued. After trial runs commencing in October 1987, she entered service on the Severn Valley Railway in June 1988.Return to steam
Taw Valley entered service after its restoration with a formal renaming ceremony taking place on 4 June 1988. Alongside its work on the mainline she did put in mileage on the SVR until 1992, when it departed from the Railway. The engine returned to the SVR as a resident in 2001, when its owner Bert Hitchen put her up for sale and she was acquired by SVR member Phil Swallow. Following its withdrawal from the mainline it was disguised as scrapped sister 34036 Westward Ho for an appearance at the SVR's Autumn Steam Gala in 2005. In that same year, the engine was withdrawn from service requiring a complete overhaul.Taw Valley's first overhaul after restoration began in the spring of 2006. It required a total rebuild of her boiler, and took 9 years. She was completed and run-in in-time to haul an incoming "British Pullman" railtour on 16 May 2015 from Bewdley to Bridgnorth.
Queen's Platinum Jubilee
In Early 2022, the engine was temporarily repainted from BR Lined Green with late crest into lined purple livery with the number 70 and renamed Elizabeth II for the Queens Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. Alongside replacing its 34027 number with '70', the engine also had its nameplates changed to Elizabeth II. It had been intended to repaint the engine back into BR lined green by September 2022, but following the death of Elizabeth II on 8 Sept 2022 the repaint was delayed. When outshopped, the engine originally wore red backed nameplates, these were changed to black following Queen Elizabeth's death with the addition of 1926 - 2022 beneath to honour the life of the late queen.The engine wore this livery until 2023, but reverted to wearing its own Taw Valley nameplates and its 34027 number that year. With the engine planned to be withdrawn in autumn 2023 for an intermediate overhaul, instead of returning to its authentic BR lined green livery, she was repainted into Southern wartime black. The engine wore its original Southern number 21C127 and Taw Valley nameplates with Southern lettering on its tender. This is historically inaccurate, however, as the class was rebuilt between 1955 and 1961 and Taw Valley being rebuilt in 1957, none of the rebuilt engines wore Southern Railway colours.