Taiwan D51→DT650 Steam Locomotives

The introduction of the DT650 class of the Taiwan Railway Administration can be divided into three stages. First, 27 locomotives were introduced between 1939 and 1943 as the D51 class of the Taiwan Governor-General's Railway. They were of the same type as the second-batch D51 class of the Japanese Government Railways, and were built by Kisha Seizō (9 locomotives), Kawasaki (15 locomotives), and Hitachi (3 locomotives). In 1944, as the war intensified and Japan lost control of the sea lanes, some locomotives were completed but could not be shipped to Taiwan. They were therefore used temporarily by the Japanese Government Railways before being sent to Taiwan in 1947. By that time the D51 class being built in Japan had become the wartime third-batch design, but these locomotives were manufactured to specifications generally based on the second-batch type. Their materials, however, are thought to have been similar to those used in wartime-standard locomotives. Photographs also show examples with ship-bottom tenders and others with shortened deflectors resembling those of the Hokkaido type. Possibly because these features were disadvantageous in performance, they appear to have been withdrawn in the 1960s, and very few photographs of them survive. After the war, the Taiwan Railway Administration added five more locomotives to meet increasing freight demand: three built by Kisha Seizō and two by Mitsubishi. These were built from the beginning with Taiwan Railway Administration numbers DT683–DT687, and were fitted with smokebox-door clamps and front cowcatchers. They were the final locomotives produced as members of the D51 class. The total number was therefore 37, consisting of 12 from Kisha Seizō, 15 from Kawasaki, 8 from Hitachi, and 2 from Mitsubishi. They were used for freight service until the electrification of the West Coast Main Line, and remained as reserve locomotives for some time afterward, before being withdrawn in the early 1980s. DT668 was restored to working order in 2011. Three others are statically preserved: DT651 at Benkangkou Gangkou Temple in Dongshi Township, Chiayi County (though the actual locomotive is DT665), DT652 at Tainan Municipal Baseball Stadium, and DT675 at the New Taipei City Arts Center (though the actual locomotive is DT670).