[1] Of these 423 locomotives, 356 were from Sentetsu; the other 67 were South Manchuria Railway Mikai-class engines on loan to Sentetsu along with Mika-type locomotives which had previously belonged to the twelve privately owned railways in Korea before 1945.
Despite the DPRK government's extensive anti-Japanese propaganda, the railway nevertheless continues to use the "Mika" name officially for these locomotives even though it refers to the Japanese emperor.
[2] By the late 1910s, existing multipurpose locomotives were proving insufficient for the increasingly heavy freight trains being run in Korea.
Built by Baldwin in 1919, the Mikai class were used primarily on the Gyeongui Line.
[3] Originally numbered ミカイ701-ミカイ712, in Sentetsu's general renumbering of 1938 they became ミカイ1-ミカイ12 [1] After the division of Sentetsu's assets in 1948, three remained in the North with the Korean State Railway as class 미가하 (Migaha) and later renumbered in the 6000 series, and nine in the South with the Korean National Railroad as class 미카1 (Mika1); [1] Some of the KNR's Mika1s were rebuilt in the early 1950s by Kawasaki to use lignite as fuel, becoming the KNR Mika6 (미카6) class.