JNR C50 Class Steam Locomotive

As a modernized and improved version of the 8620 class for the Japanese National Railways (JNR), 154 C50 class locomotives were manufactured by Kisha Seizo, Kawasaki, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Nippon Sharyo between 1929 and 1933. An additional 4 units were built for the Sakhalin Railway by Kisha Seizo and Kawasaki in 1930. In 1941, 4 of them were offered and sent to the occupied Chinese island of Hainan for use by the Japanese military. However, these 4 locomotives never reached Hainan Island and instead remained in Taiwan, where they were used by the Railway Department of the Governor-General of Taiwan. After World War II, they became known as the TRA CT230 class under the Taiwan Railways Administration. The locomotive body was almost the same size as that of the type 8620, but the various new mechanisms adopted at the time resulted in a heavier body, which in turn limited the number of line sections on which it could be used. It was initially used as an express train for metropolitan suburbs, but finally was used for switching trains until 1972. Currently, 6 of them are preserved statically (refers to locomotives that are preserved in a way that does not allow them to be immediately operated, and/or that are simply on display).