Number 4's Classmates

We're pretty certain that both Dahuichang #4 and its tender were built at Harbin Forestry Machinery Factory in the mid-1980s. The tender carries a worksplate stamped with the number C2-221 of January 1988, but we now think the loco is a bit older, C2-208 or C2-209 of 1983. Harbin Forestry Machinery Factory built about twenty new 28t locos in the 1980s, at a slow rate averaging 2 or 3 per year.

During the same period, Harbin Forest Machinery Factory also overhauled hundreds of older 28t locos, and built around fifty new bogie tenders. Most of the bogie tenders were attached to older locos, replacing life-expired 6-wheel tenders. However, a few of the new locos were delivered with bogie tenders. For new locos with 6-wheel tenders it was normal practice for the loco and tender to have the same works number, but the bogie tenders were numbered in a separate C2M series starting at 1.

Some locos adopted their Harbin works number as their running number, while others were numbered in a local or provincial series. Not all locos with running numbers in the 200s were necessarily Harbin products of this period; for example the Jilin Province Forestry Bureau numbered their 28t locos in a series from 101 to 218, latterly in order of acquisition regardless of where and when they were built.

However, many of the locos built at Harbin in the 1980s can be identified from Chinese records, enthusiast reports or surviving worksplates. Those which are known are listed in the table below, followed by a selection of photographs of these locos: