34046 Braunton was steaming through familiar surroundings this afternoon en route to Weymouth for the Steam Dreams Rail Co trip from London Victoria.

34046 Braunton, Gillingham Station. credit Dan Howell

Braunton was built in 1946 at Brighton Works, initially carrying the Southern Railway number 21C146.

Bearing a number, but as yet no name, the locomotive was first allocated to Exmouth Junction Shed. During this period it would have been seen on the Barnstaple to Ilfracombe line passing through the town of Braunton after which it was later named.

In February 1959, the now renumbered 34046, transferred depots as it made its way to Bournemouth.

Whilst based at Bournemouth 34046 was mostly used on services between Waterloo and Weymouth but also ran on the Somerset and Dorset line between Bath and Bournemouth.

34046 was withdrawn in October 1965 just six years after its expensive rebuild and was sent away for scrap to Woodham Brothers at Barry and arrived at the scrapyard in January 1966.

It left Barry in 1988 and was moved to Brighton where an abortive attempt was made to restore the locomotive which by then was missing many parts.

Enough of the machine had survived for it to be worth purchasing in 1996 by the West Somerset Railway Association.

It was moved to the West Somerset Railway for restoration which was a big job, as with the exception of the frames, boiler and wheels (that all needed refurbishment), many parts needed to be sourced from classmates or built from scratch. In July 2007 was steamed for the first time since 1965.

It re-entered service on the West Somerset Railway in September 2008 and after completing more than 10,000 miles in service and completing the necessary trials Braunton was able to return to mainline running in 2013.