The Pashi or Pasi (Japanese パシ, Korean 파시) class locomotives were a group made up of five distinct classes of steam

tender locomotive A tender or coal-car (US only) is a special rail vehicle hauled by a steam locomotive containing its fuel (wood, coal, oil or torrefied biomass) and water. Steam locomotives consume large quantities of water compared to the quantity of fuel, s ...

s built for the

Chosen Government Railway Chosen or The Chosen may refer to: The chosen ones *Chosen people, people who believe they have been chosen by a higher power to do a certain thing including ** Jews as the chosen people Books * ''The Chosen'' (Potok novel), a 1967 novel by Chaim ...

(''Sentetsu'') with

4-6-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of four leading wheels on two axles, six powered and coupled driving wheels on three axles and two trailing wheels on one axle. The locomo ...

wheel arrangement In rail transport, a wheel arrangement or wheel configuration is a system of classifying the way in which wheels are distributed under a locomotive. Several notations exist to describe the wheel assemblies of a locomotive by type, position, and c ...

. The "Pashi" name came from the American naming system for steam locomotives, under which locomotives with 4-6-2 wheel arrangement were called "Pacific". As the 1920s approached, it became clear that Sentetsu needed more powerful locomotives than its existing Amei-class and Teho-type locomotives to pull its important passenger trains. Consequently, Sentetsu turned to the Baldwin Locomotive Works once again, this time ordering passenger steam locomotives of the 4-6-2 wheel arrangement. Satisfied with these, another six were imported from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, this time from

ALCo The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

, in 1923. In the same year, Kisha Seizō of Japan built six copies of the Baldwin design and Kawasaki built six more of a similar design; these became the first Pashi type locomotives to be built domestically, and signalled the end of locomotive imports from overseas. All further Pashi type locomotives were built in Japan and

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

. In total, there were 144 Pashi type locomotives of five distinct classes built for Sentetsu: * Pashii * Pashini * Pashisa * Pashishi * Pashiko Of these, the Pashishi class was the most numerous, and the Pashiko class was the heaviest and fastest steam locomotive ever to be operated by a Korean railway company. Following the end of the Pacific War and the subsequent partition of Korea in 1945, these locomotives were all divided between the Korean National Railroad in the South and the

Korean State Railway The Korean State Railway (), commonly called the State Rail () is the operating arm of the Ministry of Railways of North Korea and has its headquarters at Pyongyang, P'yŏngyang. The current Minister of Railways is Chang Jun Song. History ...

in the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north ...

; of the 141 Pashi-class locomotives that survived the war, 73 went to the South and 68 to the North at the time of the division. In the South, the KNR used them on passenger trains into the late 1960s; the last ones were retired around 1971. Little of their service lives in the North is known; with the great emphasis placed on electrification of trunk lines in the DPRK in the 1950s and 1960s, and the service introduction of the Red Flag 1-class electric locomotives from January 1962, by the end of the 1960s the bulk of North Korea's trunk lines had been electrified, and steam power had been mostly relegated to the secondary lines, so it is likely that North Korean Pashi-class locomotives did not last much longer in service than those in the South. The Pashishi class was also built for the Central China Railway in Japanese-occupied China, and by the China Railway after the Liberation of China.

References

{{Sentetsu rolling stock Locomotives of Korea Locomotives of South Korea Locomotives of North Korea 4-6-2 locomotives