Micro Ace - A9704 - Locomotive, Steam, 2-8-0 Class 9600 - Japanese National Railways - 49618

Prototype History: The Class 9600, popularly known as Kyuroku (nine-six), was the first type of locomotive to be mass-produced by Japanese manufacturers. In the 1909 Japanese Railway classification system, tender locomotives with four or more drive axles are numbered 9000 to 9999. The 96's, with their 2-8-0 arrangement, were extensively used for freight service. A total of 770 units were built between 1913 and 1925. The last unit was not phased out of service until March of 1976.

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.