Taw was the name of a Manning Wardle

Manning Wardle

Manning Wardle was a steam locomotive manufacturer based in Hunslet, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.- Precursor companies :The city of Leeds was one of the earliest centres of locomotive building; Matthew Murray built the first commercially successful steam locomotive, Salamanca, in Holbeck, Leeds,...

  2-6-2T locomotive which was built in 1898 for Lynton and Barnstaple Railway

Lynton and Barnstaple Railway

The Lynton & Barnstaple Railway opened as an independent railway in May 1898. It was a single track narrow gauge railway slightly over long running through the rugged and picturesque area bordering Exmoor in North Devon, England. Although opened after the 1896 Light Railways Act came into force,...

. Taw was scrapped in 1935

Taw, like all the locomotives on the L&B, was named after the River Taw

River Taw

The River Taw rises at Taw Head, a spring on the central northern flanks of Dartmoor. It reaches the Bristol Channel away on the north coast of Devon at a joint estuary mouth which it shares with the River Torridge.-Watercourse:...

, a local river with a three-letter name.

The tradition of naming L&B steam locos after local rivers continues into the 21st Century, with Lyd, a replica of Lew (the fourth locomotive built to this basic design), operational on the Ffestiniog railway

Ffestiniog Railway

The Ffestiniog Railway is a narrow gauge heritage railway, located in Gwynedd, Wales. It is a major tourist attraction located mainly within the Snowdonia National Park....

 and the Welsh Highland Railway

Welsh Highland Railway

The Welsh Highland Railway is a long restored narrow gauge heritage railway in North Wales, operating from Caernarfon to Porthmadog, and passing through a number of popular tourist destinations including Beddgelert and the Aberglaslyn Pass. At Porthmadog it connects with the Ffestiniog Railway...

A 7.25 inch gauge verision of Taw was built by J. Horsfield in 1999 and runs on the Eastleigh Lakeside Railway.

Closer to the L&B, the railway's trust currently owns one steam locomotive - renamed Axe - which, although it did not serve on the historic L&B, has been restored for use on the new line, currently based at Woody Bay.