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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Beyer & Peacock was a Manchester based locomotive company, although they had a brief period of producing artillery during World War I. In 1855, their first train, for Great Western Railways, left the production line at their Gorton Foundry; the last would be the NG-G16 class locomotive, for South African Railways, in 1958. The company closed its doors 8 years later, in 1966, after 112 years – and over 8000 trains.

Beyer & Peacock built this particular engine in 1897 and it entered service on the Tohoku main line, shuttling passengers between stations on this long stretch of rail that runs between Aomori & Tokyo.

When it entered service, it would have been known by a different name entirely – the Piten, a portmanteau using the ‘p’ from Peacock and joining it to ‘ten’, meaning tender. Later, with the nationalisation of the Japan Railways in 1906, she would become a 5500 series along with 66 other locos although they were not all Beyer & Peacock produced.

The 5500s lasted fairly long given how far they’d been surpassed technologically – 22 of them were still in use for shunting in 1947 – but the countdown had begun.

The majority of them were scrapped except for 5540, who was fortunate enough to be selected for preservation at Ome Railway Park where they’ve resided since 1961. (However, I believe one of their private sister trains survived too, and is nowadays at the Tobu railway company museum in Tokyo.)

Here’s a breakdown of the details about this train, taken from the appendix to Steam Locomotives of Japan, Naotaka Hirota: Kodansha International (1972).

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Built by Beyer Peacock Co.

CYLINDER: 406 x 559mm
BOILER PRESSURE: 12.0kg/cm²
FIRE GRATE AREA: 1.33m²
TOTAL HEATING SURFACE: 73.0m²
– EVAPORATIVE HEATING SURFACE: 73.0m²
– HEATING SURFACE OF SMOKE TUBES: 65.7m²
– HEATING SURFACE OF FIRE BOX: 7.3m²
BOILER CAPACITY: 2.3m³
SMALL SMOKE TUBES (diameter x length x number) 45 x 3229 mm x 162
WEIGHT OF ENGINE (in working order) 31.65t
WEIGHT OF ENGINE (empty) 29.22t
ADHESIVE WEIGHT OF ENGINE (in working order) 20.01t
WEIGHT OF TENDER (in working order) 24.20t
WEIGHT OF TENDER (empty) 11.64t
WATER CAPACITY : 9.1m³
FUEL CAPACITY : 3.46t
VALVE GEAR : Stephenson’s
INTRODUCED : 1894

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You can visit 5540 by going here.