There are more than a few steam locomotives sitting in parks across Japan, enjoying their retirement.

I wanted to acknowledge the ones I happen across for all their hard work, so I started the Static Life Steam Locomotives Project, SLSL for short.

^{_{A map of the Static Life Steam Locomotives & more about the project is here.}}

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C58-395 sits in the middle of a zoo to the north of the Tokyo metropolitan area, in Hamura city. Hamura itself is in Tokyo prefecture, but you’d be hard pressed to equate this laidback, slightly rundown & sort of rural town as Tokyo. That’s a good thing though, if you ask me.

The zoo is about a fifteen minute walk north from the station, or you can take a bus – there’s usually one about every twenty minutes. While you can see the train from the road beside the zoo, you’ll have to go inside if you want a proper look.

It’s not a bad zoo, as previously mentioned, so it’s worth the 400 yen entry fee.

C58-395’s information board introduces the train –

I’m C58 -395. I was carrying passengers about the place until round about Showa 50 (1975). After I came to this zoo, I became a pretty popular attraction for kids! I hope you all will come back and hang out with me again some time.

The rest of the sign gives you the biographical breakdown for C58-395 –

BIRTHDAY: Showa 21 (1946), 17th September

BIRTHPLACE: Osaka Steam Train Company

RETIRED: Showa 50 (1975), 25th June

then came to the zoo :

Showa 50 (1975), 12th July

Worked in…

… Chigasaki, Showa 21 (1946), October 16th

… Sakura, Showa 23 (1948), June 19th

… Kitami, Showa 24 (1949), July 11th

Total distance travelled: 1809517km

… which is 45 times around the world or 2.4 round trips.

(Then the sign gives a bit of an explanation about what the train’s numbers mean – ‘C’ is the classification for a 3 axled train, 58 is the class of the train & 395 is the number of train produced in this class.)

A couple of bits by way of comment on the above: yep, the sign really does say 45 times around the world / 2.4 round trips around the world. I found this pretty hard to wrap my head around too so I double checked that this is how it’s phrased, and it really does seem to be put like that. Go figure… (!)

My favourite part about the information is that C58-395’s first home was Chigasaki, which is where I live too, at least for a couple more weeks.

Nowadays, C58-395 lives in the middle of a children’s play area, fenced in and neighbour to a selection of vegetables being grown, some dinosaur statues & some concrete cylinders for playing in.

I hope that’s not my future residence, but C58-395 didn’t seem to mind.

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You can visit C58-395 here.