JNR C56.44 Back Home in Japan

Making its way out of the Shin-Kanaya engine shed on clear but windy November day, Oigawa Railway ex-JNR Mitsubishi Mogul (2-6-0) steam locomotive C56.44 shows little trace of its involvement in one of the Japanese empire's World War II-era projects, the Thai-Burma Railway.  It worked there as Thai No. 735, and sometimes runs under that identity or James the Red Engine, though it usually runs as C56.44.  Unlike its sister C56.31 at the Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan war museum, C56.44 has a pair of Wagner smoke deflectors, which give it an elephant-eared look.