There were 19 of these locomotives. The first group of 12 were built by Baldwin in 1920 as 901 thru 912 and were renumbered 1 thru 12 in 1938.. They were the most American looking of all of the Korean locomotives since they did not have the totally straight running boards even with the bottom edge of the cab like the other locomotives. The running boards were higher and were broken to go over air pumbs. They also had the engineer on the left hand side and were the only locomotives like this until the former U S Army consolidations came in the late 1940s. The Korean crews did not like this feature. The next group were built by Seoul in 1923 as 919 thru 924. They exchanged numbers with the PS-2s built by Alco in 1922 and became 913 thru 918 until 1938, when they became 13 thru 18. Of all the Pacifics, James Heffner shows that 73 went to South Korea and 68 to North Korea at the time of the division. It could be assumed that the 23 PC1s were probably split evenly.

Number 7 was pulling a 16 car passenger train southbound when it was wrecked at Osan on February 1, 1954. The locomotive was running tender first with no lights when it hit a Korean Army supply truck. The truck wedged under the tender wheels, derailing it and turning it around. The drawbar became a U. The first three passenger cars, all standard wooden coaches, piled up onto the locomotive. The first two cars were turned into kindling. The pipes on the locomotive were broken, releasing steam into the wreckage. 57 were killed. The other 13 cars were converted box cars which never left the rails. A colonel was there and ordered the 7 to be rolled off the track. I objected with no effect. The engine was destroyed, and the wreck clearing was delayed several hours while this fiasco was being attempted. 7 did not want to roll over and die.

AMDG

7/22/1999