Japanese Government Railways class 9600

The class 9600 of the Japanese Government Railways consisted of 770 Consolidations for freight service built by several builders between 1913 and 1925. They were the first steam locomotives which were mass-produced in Japan. Their nickname was “Kyuroku”, what just means “nine-six”. 38 more were built for Taiwan and at first called class 800, later D98 and finally DT580. After World War II, another one was built in Taiwan from parts of scrapped locomotives.

Also in World War II, the Central China Railway and the North China Transportation Company urgently needed locomotives and so 251 of the Japanese ones were shipped to China and rebuilt to standard gauge. There they were called Soriko class and after the war, China Railway took them over as class KD5. Some were converted to meter gauge to be used on the Kunming–Hekou Railway and called KD55. In Japan, all were retired at once on March 2nd, 1976 when steam service ended. Today, more than 40 are still existing.