ReBuILt ‘WC’ NO. 34101 HARTLAND

Of the 20 preserved ‘Light Pacifics’, No. 34101 Hartland is the only example to have been built at Eastleigh. Despite this claim to fame, the youngest surviving rebuilt ‘Light Pacific’ has yet to return to its region of origin. The ‘West Country’ spent the first decade of its life allocated to Stewarts Lane, until the completion of the Kent coast electrification resulted in No. 34101 being transferred to Bricklayers Arms in 1961. Hartland subsequently moved to Brighton the following year, then Nine Elms (1963) and finally Eastleigh in 1964, where it stayed until withdrawal two years later. Its saviour was Richard Shaw, who purchased No. 34101 in 1978 and moved it to his engineering works, Shaw Metals Ltd, in Derby. Hartland’s restoration was completed at the Great Central Railway in October 1993, but two years later it became part of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway’s resident fleet. It was withdrawn in the late 1990s for its ‘ten-yearly’ overhaul. However, now owned by his wife and daughters, an overhaul to return Hartland to steam is well under way at the NYMR. The boiler is at the South Devon Railway, where a new inner firebox is being fabricated, and it is hoped that No. 34101 will be back in traffic by the end of the year.