A friend of mine with ties to South Korea (his wife is from there, and he spent several years there courtesy of the US Air Force) just returned from a 2-week trip there. He had read all of the various Internet posts about the rumored locomotive and went a-looking.

I'm sorry to report that he found no trace that the locomotive had existed there in recent memory. Here are his notes:

"I went back to the railroad
university and looked at (and photographed the explanatory sign) in front
of the steam locomotive on display, and there was nothing to indicate it
was ever associated with the Erie. The one on display is a Baldwin built
in 1914 and delivered to Korea, during the Japanese occupation, in 1919.
The text under the ==== lines below is extracted from a website claiming
that the Erie locomotive was on display at the visitor center by the Imjin
(not Imjim) river, and I asked a guy at the adjacent Railroad Museum if
there was originally a different (American) locomotive on display,
replaced by later by the Japanese-built locomotive currently on display.
He said no, the one there now is the one that's always been there.

With that in mind, I think the guy who wrote that he saw "a 4-6-2 with a
Vanderbilt tender" in the mid-1980s was kidding himself or others and
started a whole lot of confusion on the web. When I first went there in
late 1987 during a jump trip to Taiwan, it was the Japanese locomotive I
saw, and it was still there in April 2000 when I went back.


Looking at the B&W photo of the Erie locomotive on the webpage, I
know that the loco on display at the railroad museum is much smaller and
couldn't possibly be from the same class."

Sigh-sorry to report this, folks!

John;

Thank you, and thank you for your e-mail last night. It would appear this latest investigation would be enough to put to matter to bed for good.

As the owner of the Korean Steam page, I will update it again, and remove the reference to the Erie RR 4-6-2 rumor. I will leave some kind of reference to the fact that it was sent there during the Korean war along with S-160s and the WWI General Pershing locomotive (since brought back to the states); but it is assumed to have been scrapped.

BTW, the note about Koreans loving "all things American" was a quote from the originator of the rumor as well. It was not my intention to offend anyone Korean; it will be removed with the remainder of the quote as well.

I also recieved an update on the situation with the narrow gauge railways; while it is not steam related; it does need to weaved somehow into that page. There have also been government sanctioned trips into North Korea that have revealed steam locomotives still at work; although at least some are going to scrap as well.

-Thanks again;
James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

James-the thanks go to you for the indefatiguable (sp?) efforts on behalf of steam. Thanks also to my friend Tim, who actually did the legwork "over there"!

John