The JGR Class 6700 was a 4-4-0 American-type steam locomotive operated by the Japanese Government Railways from 1911 to 1951.
History[]
The Class 6700 was a domestically-produced passenger locomotive designed by Yoshimatsu Ota. The concept of this locomotive had been planned as early as 1906 when the JGR wanted a standardized locomotive style for use on the JGR after the numerous private railroads had been nationalized. The initial idea was to produce a domestic 4-4-2 locomotive according to Hikozo Mori, the chief of the Shimbashi Works; however, when Yasujiro Shima, a leader of the JGR, found out about this, he vetoed the wheel arrangement, stating that a trailing truck would be useless for a locomotive of this type and so the 4-4-0 wheel arrangement would be used instead.
Under the watchful eye of Yoshimatsu Ota, the locomotive was designed using technologies developed by Richard Francis Trevithick, a former inspector at JGR's Kobe Branch during Meiji Japan who was also involved in locomotive design and was pivotal with the introduction of Japan's first domestically-produced locomotive. Production of the locomotives was outsourced to Kisha Seizō and the Kawasaki Shipyards (now Kawasaki Heavy Industries); these would be the first locomotives produced by Kawasaki. A total of forty-six locomotives were produced by both companies from 1911 to 1912. These were designed to pull short passenger trains at high speeds and were placed around east and central Japan. Some were later moved to west Japan. A number of locomotives were then modified from 1928 to 1930 to become the Class B50, a superheated version; Kawasaki manufactured their own superheated version as well. In their later years the locomotives were used for shunting; retirements began in 1950 and all were retired by 1951, with none sold to private railroads. No Class 6700s have been preserved.