Horonai 2-6-0 Locomotives in Japan

Class Yoshitsune (Locobase 7621)

Data from the Kotsu Hakubutsukan Japanese transportation museum site [], last accessed 3 July 2006 and from Wikipedia's entry on the preserved 7100s [], accessed 8 January 2007. Works numbers were 368 in January 1880; 369, 487-488 in April; 643 in May 1884; and 672 in January 1885.

These diamond-stackers went to work on the first railroad to be built on the northern island of Hokkaido (a line between Temiya and Sapporo). (Locobase notes how quickly railroads expanded their geographical reach after the first locomotive arrived in Japan in 1871.) The firebox heating surface seems unusually large in relation to total evaporative heating surface; Locobase supposes the poor-quality coal, which required a large grate, is most responsible.

Locomotives on the Horonai were named for famous heroes. The Porter engines remember Yoshitune -a tragic hero of the 12th Century, Benkei (Yoshitune's faithful knight). Hirafu and Mitsukuni were delivered in 1882, and Nobuhiro and Shizuka in 1884.

As early as 1911, Benkei was identified as worth preserving. More remarkably, 40 years later the other two in the class were found still operating at a rolling-stock factory in Osaka (Yoshitune) and Murorane Steel Works in Hokkaido (Shizuka). In 1962, the three were reunited in Tokyo.