Unsorted Trains (1)

Hello all,

From time to time, I'll also post pictures of trains I photographed during one of my many travels. These posts have no particular theme other than trains. There is no time order in the pictures as well. It's just trains and trains for the sake of trains.

09-03-2013 Kamata station. Tōkyū 7600 Series with 'Kabuki' style painted fronts.

09-03-2013 Tamagawa station. Tōkyū 7700 Series.

09-03-2013 Jiyūgaoka station. Tōkyū 9100 Series on one of its last days on the Tōyoko line.

09-03-2013 Kamata station. Two Tōkyū 7700 Series stand ready to operate a new service on both the Tamagawa and Ikegami line.

10-03-2013 Yokohama station. A Yokohama Minatomirai Y500 Series stands ready for a through run to Motomachi-Chūkagai (Chinatown) on the Minatomirai 21 line (21 standing for the 21st century).

10-03-2013 Tamagawa station. Now disappeared from the Tōkyū Tōyoko line are these Tōkyō Metro 03 Series. The only 18m length trains still in operation on the Tōyoko line as well.

10-03-2013 Tamagawa station. A Tōei Mita line 6300 Series rushes into the station. Personally, the Mita line is of much interest, because of the large number of different rolling stock used who all have a different front design. I'll probably spend a day trying to catch all types on camera in the future.

03-02-2013 Yokohama station. A Keikyū 2100 Series and a JR East E233-1000 Series next to each other in a symbolic way. Both companies have a heavy rivalry going on for the sake of rapid passenger transport between Shinagawa in Tokyo and Yokohama. All in all, Keikyū is the winner in both speed and price.

03-02-2013 Mizunokuchi station. A Keikyū 2100 Series and N1000 Series, 10th type with stainless steel body, stand next to each other on the southernmost point of the Keikyū network. In the future, this station will probably remain the final point of the line, since nobody can tell if the line is being extended.

03-02-2013 Namamugi station. A 4-door 800 Series is being overtaken by a 1000 Series, aluminium body. I love these 800 Series, as they really have a Shōwa (pre 1990s) atmosphere and are incredibly powerful.

03-02-2013 Yokohama station. A 8700 Series from Sōtetsu is getting ready again for an express run to Ebina.

03-02-2013 Futatamagawa station. A 10000 Series in a seldom 8-car formation on a local train service from Yamato to Yokohama. Usually, trains on the Sōtetsu network are 10-cars long, but there are also 8-car trains for local runs outside of the rush hour.

Cheers!

Toni

A trainy weekend (2)

Hello all,

It's been a while already since I made a new entry. I know my absence caused some confusion, since I was close to the end of my visa expiration and feared for the worst. Now, I've been to Busan in Korea (I'll make a blog entry on that later) with my dear girlfriend and extended my visa for another 3 months! Hurray! From now on I'll try to concentrate on less, but better pictures and larger previews. The text will also be in line with the pictures, so no confusion between text and pictures will start to exist. Also, maintaining the layout will be a hell of a lot easier for me as well. So, let's continue where we left off.

After the train museum, we went to the parental home of my girlfriend. They live near the station of Shimodate, a crossing point in the north of the Kantō plains of the JR East Mito line, Mooka Railway and Kantō Railway Josō line. Now, this is already interesting enough for me, since on all three lines, interesting rolling stock is used, though the Mooka railway stands out from all three companies crossing in Shimodate.

Now, here's a small hint. For those capable of reading Japanese, this is already clear. For those wondering what SL stands for, please read on. The usual trains on the Mooka railway are single or combined two car DMU (Diesel Multiple Units), but the one we were riding that day was a bit more special....

Wait, a simple diesel locomotive with brown coaches? Not that special huh. Well, apart from locomotive hauled passenger trains being extremely rare in Japan, this one has a bit more to it. See the little white plume in the distance?

Yeees! It's a steam train! That's what the 'SL' stands for: Steam Locomotive. Even Japanese prefer to call a steam train an 'SL', instead of 蒸気機関車 (Jyōki Kikansha), because it's easier to pronounce. This engine is one of the two owned by the Mooka railway and was the only one in operation that day. Sometimes Mooka operates the two at the same time, on special occasions and national holidays, but usually it's the C12 or C11. That day we were presented with the C12.

After the reguar DMU had entered and left Shimodate station, the SL rode up to the platform and was ready to be boarded.

The inside of the ex-JR East 50 Series coaches were adorned with strawberry designs and patterns, a local speciality that happened to be in season. In Europe, we're used to having strawberries in summer, but in Japan it's at the end of winter.

Of course, there were vendors on the train, so we bought a beer for on the trip. The entirety of the line isn't very interesting, but on the approach to the last station, Motegi (known for the racing circuit), the mountains started to dominate the landscape. During the ride, a lot of railfans, locals and children were waving and taking pictures of the train. Some even went as far as to chasing the train with cars, since we spotted the same cars during the trip at photographing spots.

In Motegi we decided on taking a regular train back to Shimodate, since we were going somewhere else that day. More on that in the next update. By the way, the regular trains are called 'Suika' or watermelons by the locals. I can sort of understand why. Also, I really like the livery design of these DMU. It makes them stand out from the usual trains in Japan. It's almost like they were designed by Mitooka Eiji, the famous designer who does a lot of stuff in the railway business.

 As a goodbye of this blog entry, a view of the drivers cab of a regular Mooka Railway DMU. Very modern with the single-handle lever (I prefer dual-handle operated trains though) and provides for a very smooth and surprisingly fast accelerating ride.

See you next time! Cheers!

Toni

A trainy weekend (1)

Hello all,

Last weekend was a busy weekend with lots and lots and lots and lots of trains. The plan was to visit the parents of my girlfriend on friday and have a stopover in Ōmiya at the JR railway museum (鉄道博物館).

It's quite a trip from where we live, but it was en-route to where the parents of my girlfriend live, so that was pretty convenient. We had only a small suitcase with us with clothes, so on our way we went.

After a quite long, but quick trip to Ōmiya, we changed to the Saitama New Urban Transit for the Railway Museum station. This station was especially built for the museum, so you practically disembark in the museum.

The station itself isn't much in the style of the museum (mostly because Saitama New Urban Transit has not much to do with the JR Group), but outside it's very much museum-like.

With train wheels on display and the fronts of a D51 steam locomotive and 153 Series EMU (in school colours, orange and yellow), you already are in the right atmosphere right away. On the floor a Shinkansen schedule plan was made in tiles and behind glass there were also some interesting items on display.

We stowed away our luggage in the free lockers and went inside. Luckily, we got free entrance tickets, because my girlfriend had saved up on Lumine points, so we didn't have to pay ¥1,000 each (which is still pretty good for such a museum).

Upon entering the museum, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. The museum is three stories high, with the floor level able to house full-size trains, which it does.

The centre piece is of course the C57 on the turntable, which gets turned around at 15:00 and blows its magnificent whistle. Other than that, around the turntable, legendary trains are positioned, such as two bonnet-nosed Ltd. Express 481 and 181 Series and, one of my favourites, an ED75 Type electric locomotive.

A map of all trains inside the museum can be found here: http://www.railway-museum.jp/zone/index.html It's in Japanese, but easy enough to understand I think.

At the end of the day, we had an advanced drivers class (we were too late to attend the entry class) and both of us did pretty well in it. I managed to mess up my perfect score with over speeding a 25km/h signal and answering a question wrongly (too much text) from 100 points to 60 points... Disappointing, but ah well. We got some cool white drivers handshoes (yes, that is correct railway jargon) to take home.

The parents of my girlfriend picked us up at Oyama and we went for some really good rāmen (Chinese style noodles) nearby. It was a good day, but the weekend had just begun! The next day would be a continuation of what we had started.

Cheers!

Toni

P.s. check out the texts when you hover over the pictures for a short description!