Banshu 2-6-2 Locomotives in Japan

Class 3 (Locobase 14224)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Volume 49, p. 212. Works numbers were 39528-39530 in March 1913.

Locobase cannot say for sure if the Banshu Railway was one of those built under Japan's 1910 Light Railway Act (see Locobase 14223 for more information), but the little Prairie tanks were certainly small enough and light enough to qualify.

Class 7 (Locobase 14604)

Data from Baldwin Locomotive Works Specification for Engines, as digitized by the DeGolyer Library of Southern Methodist University, Vol 60, p. 77+. Works number was 52718 in December 1919 and 53267 in May 1920.

These two Prairie tanks were essentially identical, although Baldwin's specs for the second one show very slight differences in grate and firebox heating surface areas. They were slightly smaller, but heavier, than the earlier Banshu 2-6-2Ts described in Locobase 14224. Locobase isn't sure where Japan's Banshu Railway operated, but a clue in a much later article suggests it served the famed Banshu textile region, which lies north of Kakogawa and northwest of Kobe.