South Manchurian 2-8-2 Locomotives in China

Class Jiefang / JF 1 / MIKA-1 (Locobase 3845)

Data from []; and Duncan Cotterill's Tractive Efforts website ([], first visited 13 October 2004. Later moved to [], last accessed 4 November 2021; and "China Railways JF" in Wikipedia at [], last accessed 19 March 2023.. Works numbers were 59360-59384 in 1918.

This engine design first came to China (Manchuria) in 1918 as an Alco product from Schenectady Works, which delivered 25 as road numbers 1500-1524.

Japanese companies and the South Manchurian Railway contributed many locomotives. See Wikipedia's China Railways JF entry for a complete list of all the different locomotive classes that aqquired JF (Jierang or "Liberation") class IDs.

Duncan Cottrill's account noted that the first 140 conformed to the original Alco design. In 1935, use of a shorter boiler meant less heating surface. By the end of World War II, over 2,000 JFs had been supplied by several Japanese builders, including Kawasaki, KSK, Nippon Sharyo, and Hitachi.

Ejii Nozawa added that Sifang Railway Works in the PRC began producing this engine in July 1952 as the first domestically produced steam locomotive. 454 of this later class was delivered from 1952 to 1960.

Class M (Locobase 20740)

Data from "Unusual Method of Testing Steam Locomotives", Railway Age, Volume 77, No 17 (25 October 1924), pp.733-734. See also M636C 's 25 August 2018 post from the "Steam Locomotive Features Likes and Dislikes" thread onTrains forum at [], last accessed 17 May 2020. Works numbers were 65435-65439 in June 1924.

RA published the data for this quintet of small-drivered Mikados to describe how their drawbar horsepower output was measured by using an electric locomotive to determine "mechanical efficency at various speed, cut-offs and loads." Alco arranged with General Electric's Erie plant to use one of the Mexican Railway company's motors, which was equipped with regenerative breaking. The test design showed ingenuity and attention to detail.

M636C wrote that the New South Wales D57 4-8-2 (Locobase 2417) "...showed some influences from US designs from Alco. It is understood that the cylinder general arrangement drawings were copied from the 1925 Locomotive Cyclopedia from the published drawings of the Alco 1600 series 2-8-2 for the South Manchurian Railway."

According to RA, the Mike demonstrated better capacity than expected as well as surprising steadyiness and ride comfort at speeds up to 63 mph (101.5 kph), "the equivalent of a piston speed of 1,700 ft per min[518 metres/min]...easily attained ...with only about a two-mile (3.2 km) run to accelerate."

Each cylinder was supplied by a 12" (305 mm) piston valve.

At this speed there was no indicaton of rough riding in the cab and the records of the otheograph indicate ...freedom from nosing."