D51 Steam Locomotive
Japanese National Railways, Kawasaki works · 1939
Beside the blue whale at the museum entrance stands a black steam locomotive, its long boiler and two great cylinders gleaming with fresh paint. It is a D51, the most numerous class of steam locomotive ever built in Japan, and the number plate on its side identifies it as D51 231. More than a thousand of these engines were built between 1936 and 1945 to haul freight trains across the country, and their nickname, Degoichi, is still spoken with affection by Japanese railway fans. This one was built in 1939 and worked for more than thirty years.
Walk the length of it. The wheel arrangement, with four large driving wheels on each side coupled by heavy rods, gave the engine the grip it needed for coal and goods trains on mountain lines. Look at the smoke deflectors on either side of the front, the sand dome and steam dome on top of the boiler, and the tender behind that carried coal and water. The cab is open at the back, and you can imagine the fireman shovelling coal into the firebox in the heat of a summer run. The D51 could pull a thousand tonne freight train and remained in service until the end of steam on Japanese National Railways in the mid 1970s.
D51 231 came to the museum in 1975 when it was retired, and it has stood outside ever since as a monument to Japanese industrial history and as a favourite photograph for children. Other members of the class survive at railway museums and in parks across Japan, and a few still run on tourist lines. Together with the whale it makes the museum forecourt a first exhibit in itself, one you can see without a ticket.
Did You Know? Over a thousand D51 locomotives were built, and this one was among the last steam engines withdrawn from Japanese National Railways in the 1970s.
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