JGR Class Ke 170

The JGR Class Ke 170 was a 0-6-0T Switcher-type narrow gauge side tank steam locomotive operated by the Japanese Government Railways and its successor the Japanese National Railways from December 1924 to August 1957.
==History==
The Class Ke 170 was an early steam locomotive used in Japan. The locomotives were ordered by the Japanese Government Railways in 1923; a total of sixteen locomotives were manufactured by the Fukagawa Dockyard and Machine Works in two batches, with fourteen locomotives manufactured in April and two in December. These were numbered Ke 170 through Ke 185; there exists evidence that the Fukagawa Dockyard and Machine Works was deliberately underselling the locomotives in an attempt to compete with Amemiya Seisakusho, one of its main rivals. The locomotives's serial numbers were divided into two groups, with the Ke 210 locomotives between them; one hypothesis claims that this was due to the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, although another hypothesis claims that the second batch of two locomotives was intended to be an improved version of the previous fourteen.
Although they were built in 1923 they only entered service in December 1924 due to the earthquake. The first fourteen locomotives were initially supposed to be assigned to Shinanogawa; following this, five locomotives were moved to various other parts of Japan while the rest remained at Shinanogawa. Striking off began in 1953 although it appears that numerous locomotives had already been out of use since around 1945. Six locomotives, Ke 172, Ke 176, Ke 179, Ke 181, Ke 184 and Ke 185, were withdrawn in 1953, followed by Ke 177 in 1954; the remaining locomotives at Shinanogawa were withdrawn in August 1957.
No Class Ke 170 locomotives have been preserved.
==References==
Category:Locomotives
Category:JR Group trains
Category:Steam locomotives
Category:0-6-0 steam locomotives
Category:0-6-0T locomotives
Category:Fukagawa locomotives
Category:Six-coupled locomotives
Category:0-6-0 locomotives
Category:0-6-0T steam locomotives
Category:Japanese locomotives
Category:Japanese steam locomotives