Taiwan 40→D34 Steam Locomotives

The Jiji Line (Ershui–Checheng) was built by the Taiwan Power Company to transport materials for the construction of a hydroelectric power station at Sun Moon Lake, and opened in 1921. Six steam locomotives were used on the line, four of which had been built in 1920 by ALCO’s Cooke Works in the United States. The railway was purchased by the Taiwan Governor-General Railway in 1927 and became the Jiji Line; these locomotives were then classified as the 40 class, numbered 40 to 43. In the 1937 class-name revision they became the D34 class, but all were withdrawn in 1938 and are said to have been transferred to sugar companies. A general arrangement drawing survives in National Locomotive Directory (Sharyō Kōgakkai, 1939), but no photograph has been confirmed. For this reason, the image shown here was created as a conceptual illustration, based on photographs of ALCO locomotives of similar size built during the 1920s. The valve gear of this class is unknown. Many comparable ALCO locomotives of the same period used Walschaerts valve gear, while earlier examples sometimes used Stephenson valve gear. Please note that the appearance may therefore have differed considerably depending on the actual valve gear fitted.