Taff Vale Railway No 28
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The wheels of TVR No 28 undergoing restoration at Norchard |
TVR No 28's Boiler in Norchard Yard
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Taff Vale Railway No 28 was built in 1897 at the TVR's West Yard Works in Cardiff, and is the only surviving Welsh-built standard gauge locomotive (The other surviving TVR loco no 85 was was built for the TVR). The engine was mainly used for transporting coal from 1897 to 1922, when the TVR became part of the Great Western Railway. At this point, the TVR locomotives were in a poor state of maintenence and the GWR began to scrap them. No 28's (renumbered 450 by the GWR) turn came in 1926.
However, the army had other ideas and No 28 became WD 205 "Gordon" (not to be confused with WD 600 "Gordon", now preserved on the Severn Valley Railway) where it put in 20 years of service, being withdrawn in 1947.
However, the breakers were still denied the opportunity to destroy No 28, as it was now transferred to the National Coal Board who renumbered it No 67 and rebuilt in 1955. However, in February 1960, it was withdrawn from NCB service and transferred to the British Transport Commission. Ironically, at this point, it had outlived all the GWR 0-6-2's that had replaced it in 1922.
Over the next 26 years, No 28 moved around frequently, often in the Caerphilly area where it had started out. It was steamed briefly in 1983 and 1985, but by the early 1990's it required a full boiler overhaul and in 1996, the locomotive was transferred to the DFR for restoration, who decided to get No 28 back up to operational status, rather than just give it a cosmetic overhaul for static display.