
Taiwan Railway No. 1 Teng-yung preserved at the 228 Peace Memorial Park in Taipei
Taiwan Railway No. 1, named Teng-yung, is a Class 1 0-4-0T side tank steam locomotive operated on the first railways in Taiwan.
History[]
Taiwan Railway No. 1 Teng-yung and No. 2 Yu-fong were built by the Hohenzollern Locomotive Works in 1887. Governor Liu Mingchuan purchased two of these German-built tank engines for the construction of the railway between Keelung and Dadaocheng (now Taipei). The reason why these two locomotives were named "Teng-yung" and "Yu-fong" was due to their speed. Their top speed was 35 km/h. They both first ran between Keelung and Dadaocheng was in 1891, right after the construction. Later on, the men built another railway from Taipei to Hsinchu.
In 1895, when the Japanese colonial government took over Taiwan after the First-Sino Japanese War, the Japanese constructed the Western Trunk line from Keelung to Takao (now Kaohsiung). Teng-yung was later renumbered from No. 1 to No. 2 and Yu-fong from No. 2 to No. 4. The line was completed in 1905, and both two engines got their original numbers back. One day in 1906, Teng-yung caused a fire due to sparks flying from the locomotive's smokestack; the locomotive then received a spark-arresting smokestack to prevent such an occurrence in the future.
Ever since the Western Trunk line has completed, Teng-yung and Yu-fong became almost powerless due to themselves not having enough power to do so. They got their jobs to be converted as a shunter. In 1917, both of them were separated to Miaoli and Taichung. They worked in Changhua and Kaohsiung for the rest of their career until they retired in 1924. While Teng-yung was luckily to be preserved, Yu-fong was sold to scrap. The Teng-yung got preserved at the New Taihoku Park (now 228 Peace Memorial Park), it is next to Taiwan Railway No. 9 as it today.
In 1999, Teng-yung was sent to the Taipei workshop for a cosmetic restoration. It is now preserved at the 228 Memorial Peace Park from then till now.
In 2009, the government of Taichung ordered the works in Hangzhou, China, to build the replica of the first steam locomotive of Taiwan. Unlike the original ran on coal, the replica runs on oil. Plus, it has a tender to fill oil like an oil burning steam locomotive. The Teng-yung replica runs at the Dongshi Hakka Cultural Park which attracted lots of tourists to ride on it. Its speed is the exactly the same as the original. However, the replica stopped its service in 2019.