SL ‘Taiju’
During the New Year holidays, 1st to 3rd January, the Tobu Railway made eight runs (four round trips) of its themed steam special named ‘SL Taiju’ (‘SL’ denotes Steam Locomotive and ‘Taiju’ denotes Great Tree) on part of its Kinugawa Line between Shimo-Imaichi and Kinugawa-Onsen, a distant of 12.4 km, in the greater Nikko region of Tochigi Prefecture. The steam motive power used for this new year steam service was two 2-6-4T C11s, C11-207 and C11-325. C11-207 was the first steam engine enrolled into the steam fleet of the ‘SL Taiju’ in 2018. The Tobu Railway uses this steam locomotive on loan from JR Hokkaido. C12-325 used to work for the Mooka Railway in charge of its steam special ‘SL Mooka’ as an additional locomotive to assist its main workforce of C12 66 for about 20 years before it was transferred to the Tobu Railway in 2019.
C11 207 in service on ‘SL Taiju #4’ gently runs through a flat region on the southern part of the line heading for Shimo-Imaichi viewed from a private park named ‘SL Flower Field’, taken by Hiroshi Naito.
C11 207 in service on SL Taiju #7 challenges the ascent towards Kinugawa-Onsen fiercely puffing steam and smoke. The double headlights which were originally fitted by JR Hokkaido caught the fancy of steam enthusiasts being given the nickname ‘crab eyes’, taken by Hiroshi Naito.
C11 325 shunting at Kinugawa-Onsen in preparation for its return run to serve SL Taiju #6, taken by Adam Barr.