D51714 preserved at Kagoshima

These are images of a preserved locomotive I found next to our hotel (the Sun Royal) at Kagoshima (photographed 12th February 2009). The address is Yojiro, Kagoshima City just up from the hotel, across a small street (Google maps .

D51 is a type of 2-4-2 steam locomotive (the wheel arrangement is called a Mikado) built by the Japanese Government Railways, the Japanese National Railways and various manufacturers from 1936 to 1951. The design of D51 was based on D50 which was launched in 1923. A total of 1,115 D51 locomotives were built. Early D51s built were known as "Namekuji type" (or "slug").

The number consists of a "D" for the four sets of driving wheels and the class number 51 is one of the series for tender locomotives that the numbers 50 through 99 were assigned to under the 1928 locomotive classification rule.

Several of the D51 class survive. A D51, D5122 stands outside the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Railway Station Sakhalin Island, Russia having been captured during World War II Another D51 , D51231 stands outside the National Science Museum in Tokyo.

The loco is preserved with some track and a signal.