Micro Ace - A9601 - Locomotive, Steam, 4-6-2 C59 - Japanese National Railways

Specific Item Information: Wear plate truck bed frame, Tendataipu of pre-war model of flat-bottomed box-shaped C59. District No. 42 belongs to the first institution of Hiroshima and Sanyo mainline train. The product "I Asaka," head comes with a mark.

Prototype History: The Class C59 is a type of 4-6-2 steam locomotive built by Japanese National Railways (JNR). The C classification indicates three sets of driving wheels. The C59 could haul 17 passenger cars. World War II limited the use of C59s as express trains, a function for which they were designed. C59s were transferred to Kyushu after electrification of the trunk lines after the war.

Road Name History: Japanese National Railways (日本国有鉄道 Nihon Kokuyū Tetsudō), abbreviated Kokutetsu (国鉄) or "JNR", was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.
By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($280 billion at 2009 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 for every ¥100 earned. By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987 JNR was privatized and divided into seven railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Micro Ace Co., Ltd. is a railroad model / plastic model maker headquartered in Suzaki, Saitama Prefecture.
Founded in 1963 as Arii Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (Arii), the company produced plastic models. In 1980 it entered the N-scale model train business and withdrew after a while. It reentered N-scale model train in 1996, with production in China.

On 10th June 2004, this business was transferred to the newly established subsidiary Micro Ace Co., Ltd., and "Micro Ace" became the new company name.

Read more (in Japanese) on Wikipedia.