2-10-2 Steam Locomotives in China

Class Type B/ST1 (Locobase 21329)

Data from Google translation and diagram from Xigua Changzhen Shiji , "China's First "Santa Fe" Type Steam Locomotive-The Middle East Railway" published 17 May 2020 on [], last accessed 25 May 2026.

Locobase used the traditional Chinese ideographs as presented on the website by copying them into the translator and generating well-constructed, English-language text.

The author begins by noting that the Chinese Eastern Railway ordered six 2-10-2 tank locomotives--4001-4006--to operate on the broad-gauge (1,524 mm) line in 1929. But a battle over who owned the railway between a warlord and the Soviet Government delayed their service entry until Zhang Xueliang signed an agreement in December to restore control to the Soviet government.

Like most double-ended tanks with five driven axles, the Type Bs generated considerable power and moved at a relatively low speed. Once on the railway, reports Shiji, "On the Harbin-Yimianpo and Harbin-Changchun sections, the Type B steam locomotives served as auxiliary [helper?] locomotives, hauling freight trains weighing 1625-2359 tons." In 1930, the CER ordered 4007 from Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries.

Continued struggles over territory including Japan's staging of the Mukden Incident in 1931(often described as the first shots fired in World War II) led to dividing the region's railways into the North Manchurian Railway, which included the renamed CER, and South Manchurian Railway, called the "She Line".

In 1935, the South Manchurian, which now owned the class, converted them to run on the standard gauge (4 ft 8 1/2 in or 1,435 mm).

The original author has found the trail of the Type B runs cold after the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge incident that led to full-scale war between Japan and China.

In 1949, after the establishment of the communist government in China, the original 7 took the China Railway designation ST1. But even then the information doesn't fully agree.