The JGR Class 3950 (originally the JGR Class C3) was a 2-6-2RT Prairie-type side tank Abt rack rail steam locomotive operated by the Japanese Government Railways from 1898 to 1921.
History[]
The Class 3950 was an early steam locomotive operated in Japan. The type was manufactured for the JGR, with four locomotives manufactured by Beyer, Peacock and Company in the United Kingdom and delivered in 1898. The locomotives were classified the Class C3 on the JGR and numbered 506 through 509. The locomotives were ordered out of necessity as the JGR had required a dedicated rack rail locomotive to scale the 66.7‰ (1/15 gradient) gradients of the Usui Pass, as well as to exploit foreign employees in Meiji Japan. The distinctive T-shaped smokestack of the Class C2s to redirect soot was dropped in favor of counter-pressure brakes, while the locomotives also gained a bunker oil tank for a fuel source in an attempt to reduce soot levels; initial locomotives used coal but were subsequently converted to use bunker oil. Two additional locomotives were built in 1901, and another four were built in 1908; these were numbered 510 through 511 and 496 through 499 respectively.
The locomotives were reclassified as the Class 3950 in 1909 when a formal rule regarding standardized classification of locomotives was enacted; the locomotives were thus renumbered 3950 through 3959. Allegedly, the locomotives performed so poorly that as soon as the train arrived at Kumanotaira Station (now abandoned), passengers would head straight to the toilet to puke and have second thoughts about boarding the train again. When the section for the Usui Pass was electrified, the Class 3950s were no longer needed there and as such they were used to haul normal freight trains. The locomotives were retired in 1921. No Class 3950s survive, although 3951 was stored at Shiodome Station Yard with Class 5000 locomotive 5001 for a time before being damaged by the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, then moved to Ōi Depot (today the Tokyo General Rolling Stock Center) before being scrapped in 1941.
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