Taiwan 14→B31→BK1 Steam Locomotive

The locomotives later renumbered 14→B31→BK1 were tank locomotives ordered from Baldwin in the United States by the Taiwan Railway Company, which had been organized in preparation for building Taiwan’s railway as a private railway. In the early years of Japanese rule, the Government-General of Taiwan had only recently shifted from military to civil administration, and its financial base was not yet stable. As a result, there was a possibility that railway operation and new-line construction would not proceed as planned. Against this background, efforts were made to introduce private capital, and Viscount Okabe Nagamoto and others applied to establish the Taiwan Railway Company. In the end, however, the company was dissolved after failing to raise sufficient funds. The locomotives arranged for the company were therefore taken over by the Government-General Railway in 1899 and used for construction work on the longitudinal main line. At that time, construction of the longitudinal line was being advanced both from the north and from the south, starting from Takao (Kaohsiung), and the locomotive numbers were also reorganized and renumbered to reflect allocation and operating circumstances. The original cab caused difficulties in bad weather, so in 1905 it was rebuilt as an enclosed cab. Later, the four locomotives were treated as Nos. 14–17 and became class B31 in the 1937 classification revision. Nos. 14 and 15 were withdrawn in 1931, while Nos. 16 and 17 survived until after the war. No. 17 became BK1 in the postwar 1948 renumbering and was withdrawn in 1951. Since No. 16 survived until after the war but was not renumbered, it is thought to have been withdrawn in 1947.