Daito Railway

[Nick_Burman]

Hello,

 

Could anyone tell me where the Daito Railway ran? I found this interesting (and rather unusual) Porter loco lettered for it, but can't find any reference. Or was it a "colonial" line, in Korea, Taiwan or China?

 

https://ameblo.jp/hasama-shokokai/image-11733140361-12786782312.html

 

Cheers Nicholas

 

[cteno4]

A little here

 

https://ameblo.jp/hasama-shokokai/entry-11733140361.html

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Nick,

 

I've got an excellent atlas and gazeteer of Japan, published in 1960 for the Olympic Games. Looking through it, I can find four Daitos. One is a suburb of Osaka, the others are small places in various parts of Japan, none of which are shown as having railways.

The small size of the loco may suggest a small passenger carrying line, perhaps to and from an onsen. Also, it would probably have to connect with a JNR line somewhere.

 
One Daito is near Matsue, and not far from a JR line, so this might have been the location of a Daito Railway. Of course, there may well be other Daitos elsewhere in Japan. On the maps published in the URL, both are of Oita, the city in eastern Kyushu. Both show the Nippori Line going across from right to left. but there are differences in the cross country line , one going off to the left, the other to the right, which is how this line is now-a-days. Both show what is obviously a private railway going off from  alongside the JNR OIta station. Neither map is dated.

     
On the second map, the red characters read 'Oyu Railway ' then 'Oita City Station''. and this would be the Oyu Rly. station. Only two Oyus found in the gazeteer, both up in Honshu.

So, unless one of our Japanese members can come up with something more, the Daito Railway seems to remain a mystery.

 

Bill,

Melbourne

[railsquid]

Not sure what the big mystery is, here's the Japanese Wikipedia entry for 大湯鉄道  , opened in 1915 between Oita and Yunohira Onsen) and nationalised in 1922. The route now forms part of the Kyūdai Main Line.

[ben_issacs]

Railsquid, 

Thanks for that info., most ihteresting. But why 'Daito Railway', there seems no mention of this name in the article? Could the DAito Rly loco shot just be a Red Herring, and have nothing to do with the Oyu Rly? Oyu looks to be the 'O' of Oita and the 'Yu' of Yunohira.
 

Bill,

Melbourne

 

[railsquid]

It is the "Daito Railway"/"だいとうてつどう"/"大湯鉄道": "dai" is the "大" from Oita (大分; "dai" as in "daigaku/大学"), "to" is the 湯 from Yunohira (湯平, "to" as in "sento/銭湯").

Edited March 12, 2020 by railsquid

[chadbag]

45 minutes ago, railsquid said:

It is the "Daito Railway"/"だいとうてつどう"/"大湯鉄道": "dai" is the "大" from Oita (大分; "dai" as in "daigaku/大学"), "to" is the 湯 from Yunohira (湯平, "to" as in "sento/銭湯").

 

Is this a good example of the kun-yomi and on-yomi (Chinese vs Japanese reading)?

 

I think you see similar things in names like Keihan [京阪]  railway (Kei is the first Kanji in Kyoto [京都]  and Han is the second Kanji in Osaka [大阪] ).  This railway originally was Kyoto -- Osaka,

 

 

[railsquid]

3 minutes ago, chadbag said:

 

Is this a good example of the kun-yomi and on-yomi (Chinese vs Japanese reading)?

 

I think you see similar things in names like Keihan [京阪]  railway (Kei is the first Kanji in Kyoto [京都]  and Han is the second Kanji in Osaka [大阪] ).  This railway originally was Kyoto -- Osaka,

 

 

Exactly. See also "Keihin" (京浜) for a common abbreviation of all things Tokyo-Yokohama related, and many other examples.

[ben_issacs]

Railsquid,

 

Good on you in re 'Daito', I was going down the same road, but you beat me to it!
 

But, one wonders why 'Daito' was painted on the little loco instead of 'Oyu'? Probably some mix-up in communications somewhere along the line.

 

Bill,

Melbourne

 

 

[railsquid]

BECAUSE "DAITO" IS THE NAME OF THE RAILWAY.

Edited March 12, 2020 by railsquid

[ben_issacs]

railsquid

 

Wiki calls it the Oyu Rly., no mention of Daito.

 

Bill

Melbourne

[railsquid]

Which "Wiki" are you looking at?

[railsquid]

2 hours ago, railsquid said:

Which "Wiki" are you looking at?

 

Oh, I guess this page on the English version: Kyūdai Main Line , which currently states:
 

Quote

In 1915, the Oyu Railway Co. opened the 22 km Oita - Onoya section.

In which case the Wiki entry is plain wrong.

 

[ben_issacs]

In the shot of 'Daito' No.1, there is a builder's plate on the smokebox.

 

Too small to read, but a distinctive shape, possibly not Baldwin, who generally had circular plates.

 

It certainly looks like a North American built engine, and the shot looks much like the standard builder's photo on a short length of track. Also the name painted on the tank in English seems to have been common practice for export locos.

 

Bill

Melbourne

[marknewton]

The loco was built by Porter. An example of their builder's plate:

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[ben_issacs]

Mark,

 

Thanks for that info, I know that I'd seen that style of plate somewhere, they are, of course on 'Yoshitsune', 'Benkei'  and the others of that class in Hokkaido. Not a well-known US loco builder.

 

But, there is still a problen]m about  'Daito No.1'. According to the info on the 'Oyu Railway' on Wicki, which Railsquid seems to doubt, the first two locos and rolling stock were second-hand from another railway.

 

These two locos were originally, No's 1 and 2, No. 1 was damaged in an accident, so No. 2 became No.1.

 

But, that loco in the photo doesn't look like  a second-hand loco, it  looks newly built. So, what was it? Was it built by Porter for Daito, who then decided to get the (cheaper) S.H. locos and cancelled the order?

 

Bill,

Melbourne

 

[railsquid]

3 hours ago, ben_issacs said:

 According to the info on the 'Oyu Railway' on Wicki, which Railsquid seems to doubt

 

 

I'm not seeming to doubt it, I'm saying it's wrong. The only relevant hits for the term "Oyu Railway" in Google are the Kyūdai Main Line wiki page mentioned above, and this thread, followed by a bunch of pages scraped from the original wiki page.

 

Which wiki page are you referring to?

[ben_issacs]

Railsquid,

            Put 'Oyu Railway' into Google, got a Japanese entry, which was automatically translated into English.

Bill,

Melbourne.

 

[cteno4]

Ben,

 

please include the url for the page you refer to in your posts or we won’t really know what you are looking at. Also if you are looking at google translated pages that cna really be jumbled including names at times. Squid reads Japanese so trust what he translates over google translate as he also has a ton to contextual train knowledge to boot and to aid translation.

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Aha, wonky Google Translate.

 

 

It transliterates the pronunciation correctly, but then comes up with "Oyu" for no apparent reason.

 

Google provides many useful tools and services, but is far from perfect. Translations in particular need to be treated with caution.

 

Anyway I see someone has beaten me to updating the Wiki page.

Edited March 16, 2020 by railsquid

[cteno4]

Listen to the squid, all hail the cephelopod!

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

O.K., Daito it is!

On  looking up 'Foreign Loco. Builders' in Okita's 'Locomotive List', we find undr H.K.Porter two 3'6" gauge 0-4-0 tank locos, B. Nos. 5642 and 43, built in Feb. 1915, for the Daito Rly, numbered 3 and 4. The loco in the photo was numbered 1, but this number had already been taken up by one of the S-H locos. So it looks like 'Porter had made an error in the numbering fir the photo.

 

Bill,

Melbourne

 

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

the more reasonable explanation is there is a gap in your research. The number is on the loco and not a mistake just some missing bit in the story why it’s numbered the way it is, obviously that was what it was numbered.

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

 Okita shows these two locos as Numbers 3 and four.

 

Bill,

Melbourne.

 

[Nick_Burman]

On 3/11/2020 at 2:32 AM, railsquid said:

Not sure what the big mystery is, here's the Japanese Wikipedia entry for 大湯鉄道  , opened in 1915 between Oita and Yunohira Onsen) and nationalised in 1922. The route now forms part of the Kyūdai Main Line.

 

It's a very big mystery for someone like me whose knowledge of Japanese can be resumed to about half a dozen kana... for a moment I actually thought this railway was one of Oita Kotsu's rail operations.

 

Cheers Nicholas