Taiwan LC12→LCK30 Steam Locomotive

This class consisted of two locomotives, one built by Orenstein & Koppel and the other by Nippon Sharyo. The Koppel-built locomotive was manufactured in 1912 and had originally been Ke204 of JGR Class Ke200, used on the Yubetsu Light Railway (湧別軽便線), which had been built to light railway standards. Seven locomotives of the same class were used there. However, despite being a government railway line, the 762 mm gauge caused many inconveniences, and the line was converted to 1,067 mm gauge. As a result, this locomotive was once withdrawn in 1917. Ke204 was then sold to Taitō Sugar (台東製糖), sent to Taiwan, and used between Taitung (台東) and Lilong, present-day Guanshan (里壠／關山), on what is now the Taitung Line. In 1922, the section on which this locomotive was operating was purchased by the Taiwan Government-General and incorporated into the Taitung Line. According to the railway annual report of the Taiwan Government-General, the locomotive became No. 32; it was later reclassified as Class L30 in the 1928 classification revision, and then as Class LC12, LC1230, in 1937. After the war, it was taken over by the Taiwan Railways Administration as Class LCK30, LCK31. It is now preserved outside the entrance of the Kuang Long Museum (光隆博物館) in Xincheng Township (新城鄉), Hualien County. The other locomotive, LCK32, was built by Nippon Sharyo in 1928. It was originally No. 36, became LC1231 of Class LC12 in the 1937 classification revision, and after the war became LCK32 of Class LCK30. Both locomotives appear to have been withdrawn in the late 1960s.