WC 2-6-0 Locomotives in Japan

Class unknown (Locobase 16009)

Data from "Japanese Railways" The Railway Engineer, Volume 18 (September 1897), p. 279.

Built under the firm direction of Mr Richard Francis Trevithick, MICE, these small Mogul tanks with tenders were very British in design, a not surprising result of an orientation that by the mid-1890s allowed the report to note that 224 locomotives of English make rolled on Japanese rails as opposed to 6 from the United States. One difference was the use of a small tender to carry the coal while flanking the boiler with two side tanks.

NB: Tube length is an estimate based a given tube heating surface

Commenting on the two American sales, the author (most likely Trevithick) reported that those delivered in 1890 had unsatisfactory finish and consumed more coal per mile than the English engines. Similar results attended the purchase of four more in 1894, said the author, who ended his review of American engines with the ambivalent observation that "it is not to be wondered at that the Japanese should prefer to purchase English-made locomotives, but we do not have a monopoly in this line."

Recent tenders for new locomotives (October 1896) had resulted in a French firm's capturing the business. British builders were so busy that more foreign companies were responding to later inquiries to such extent that "Some 60 or 70 locomotives have recently been ordered in America by the Government railways and the Japan Railway Company."

Indeed, both American and Prussian presence would increase in Japan and later designs would resemble products of those two countries.