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News Update
By Anthony Robins
May 2017
New
Faces Tetsudō
Fan/Tetsudō Journal/Asahi Shimbun/Mainichi Shimbun/Railway Gazette
International/Chukyo TV/Seibu
JR Kyūshū’s latest (11th)
‘D and S’ themed train, introduced with the
March timetable change, again a wood themed design from Eiji Mitooka
and Don Design, is the Kawasemi/Yamasemi (Kingfisher). It operates
between Kumamoto and Hitoyoshi three times daily and has been converted
from two KiHa 47 cars.
Unveiled
on 11th January was a special six-car set which
went into operation
from late January to commemorate the 90th
anniversary of the Ginza
Line. In yellow livery reminiscent of early trains, it features a retro
interior, including woodgrain walls. Delivery of the set (1139) from
Nippon Sharyo’s Toyokawa Works took place from 26th
to 27th November. A
further set (1140) operated from March.
Kanto
area railways offering enhanced commuting comfort were described in
‘News Update’ in issue 88. Latest among them is Seibu, with its eight
type 40000 sets. Unveiled to the media on 13th
February, the first went
into service on 25th March. The aluminium sets
are being built by
Kawasaki Heavy Industries, with Toshiba motors, whose design is
expected to reduce energy consumption by up to 50% compared with older
trains. Pairs of longitudinal seats can be rotated to a transverse 2
plus 2 style at less busy times. They are being marketed as a S-Train
(Scene, Seat, Seamless) operation. On weekdays, this is a through
operation between Seibu’s Ikebukuro Line and Tōkyō Metro’s Yūrakuchō
Line. At weekends, it involves two return journeys on Saturdays and
Sundays between Seibu’s Chichibu Line and the Minato-Mirai Line in
Yokohama, a distance of 113.8 km.
Mid
February saw the delivery from Kawasaki Heavy Industries of JR
Shikoku’s new limited express DMU type, the 2600. With a ‘Neo Japonism’
design concept, and featuring red, gold and white, there will be two
sets of two cars (Mc+Mc).
Iyo Tetsudō in Matsuyama, Shikoku, intends to
introduce two new type 5000
low-floor cars in September. In orange livery and with a capacity of 60
(26 seated), which is 13 more than the previous type 2100s, they will
feature ‘ehime’ free Wi-Fi and announcements in English to make them
more tourist friendly.
New
Stations JR East/JR West/Tetsudō
Journal/The Japan Times
1st
April saw Koriyama-Tomita station open on JR East’s Banetsu West Line
between Koriyama and Kikuta. East of Hiroshima, Jike opened on JR
West’s Sanyō Line between Saijo and Hachihommatsu on 4th
March, the
date of a timetable change for JR Group services. The two new stations,
at Kodo-Homachigawa and Aki-Kameyama on the reopened 1.6 km section of
the Kabe Line also opened that day. With an aim of 19,000 passengers
daily, a new station with elevated tracks is due to open on JR West’s
Kyoto Line (Tōkaidō Line between Kyoto and Ōsaka), 1.7 km from
Settsu-Tonda and 2 km from Ibaraki.
JR
East and the Urban Renaissance Agency held a groundbreaking ceremony on
10th February for the thirtieth Yamanote Line station. As yet unnamed,
it is located between Shinagawa and Tamachi, near to Sengakuji
(Keikyū/Toei Asakusa Line). Designed by Kengo Kuma, it is located on
part of a former railyard.
New Home Tetsudō
Fan/Chunichi Shimbun
As
reported in issue 89 of ‘Bullet-In’, Ōigawa Railway now has ex-JR
Hokkaidō type 14 carriages, three of which had reached Senzu by 20th
November.
29th January saw a
‘sayonara’ ceremony in Jimokuji in Ama City, Aichi Prefecture. D51 827
had been preserved in a shed there, but has now been given to Achiha,
an Ōsaka company which specialises in transporting trains. The
locomotive was once active on the Chūō Line.
Dying
Out Tetsudō Journal
JR
Freight’s Aichi area depot at Inazawa saw JNR era orange, white and
grey liveried DD51s decline to just two by mid-December. The two, DD51
853 and DD51 1805, appeared together on Kansai Line duties on 15th and
16th December.
Enhancements
JR East/JR West/Tetsudō Fan
The
4th March timetable saw all ‘Nozomi’ and
‘Hikari’ services operated by
N700A sets, compared with 100% (Nozomi) and 72% (Hikari) a year before.
60% of Kodama services are operated by N700As, compared with 57% a year
earlier.
The 4th March
timetable change also saw an extra return Tohoku Shinkansen ‘Hayabusa’
working: ‘Hayabusa 51’ from Tōkyō (10:04) to Sendai (11:39) and
‘Hayabusa 58’ from Sendai (15:57) to Tōkyō (17:32). A ‘Nozomi’ speed-up
saw ‘Nozomi 11’ from Tōkyō (07:30) reach Hakata (12:33), 7 minutes
earlier than before, with other ‘Nozomi’ services also being speeded
up.
JR West has ordered
N700A sets for the next three financial years, respectively three in
the 2017 financial year, six in 2018 and six in 2019. They will allow
withdrawal of all its type 700s.
End
and Beginning of Year Specials Kintetsu/Tetsudō
Fan
Kintetsu’s
‘Tsudoi’ theme train operated a ‘Countdown Beer Special’ on 31st
December, between Uehonmachi in Ōsaka (23:35),
Kashihara-Jingumae,
where it stopped from 00:27 to 00:50, and Yamato-Saidaiji, leaving
there at 01:18 to arrive back at Uehonmachi at 02:08. Cost of the
service ranged from 4,180 yen to 4,680 yen, which included beer, snacks
and year-end Soba noodles.
Former
JR Tōkai ‘Central Liner’ type 313-8000 set B203 made the first foray
for this type into the Shizuoka area on 23rd November. It worked empty
from Kasugai to Anjo to operate a charter to Yaizu before working empty
to Shizuoka.
JR East’s new
‘Train Suite Shikishima’ type E001 cruise train has been out and about
on test runs. 3rd to 4th
and 10th to 11th December
saw it make a long
trip from Ueno via Kofu, Shinonoi, Nagano and Aizu-Wakamatsu back to
Ueno. 5th December saw it on the Nikko line and
it was in Hokkaidō on
the two following days. It had also been at Sapporo on 26th
November.
An
eleven car E235 set, of the latest type for JR East’s Yamanote Line had
three days of test runs from 11th to 13th
January between Shinagawa and
Kozu on the Tōkaidō Line. A wintry Mt. Fuji made a backdrop. The test
runs followed two previous periods in April 2015 and February 2016.
Photo by Kiyoshi Jinno, 23rd January 2017
Under Surveillance Kyodo/Japan Today
Long
prevalent in many countries, but rare in Japan, are train interior
cameras. However, following those installed on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen
type N700 and Hokuriku Shinkansen type E7/W7, Tōkyō Metro will begin
installing cameras in 2018 or 2019 above each door of its subway cars,
initially on its Hibiya and Marunouchi Lines. The other Tōkyō subway
operator, Toei, will also start installing several ceiling mounted
cameras in each of its cars. Footage will be saved to hard disks, kept
for around one week and only a limited number of employees will have
access to it. Although the spur to the installation is the 2020 Tōkyō
Olympics, Toei does not expect to complete installation for ten years.
The total number of cars to be covered for both operators is around
3,800.
Back on Track Asahi Shimbun
On 22nd
December a major fire in Itoigawa, Niigata Prefecture, destroyed many
buildings including a traditional Japanese restaurant ‘Tsurugiya’. The
restaurant had been supplying bento lunchboxes for the 3rd-sector
Echigo Tokimeki’s ‘Setsugekka’ resort train since April 2016. It
managed to make a comeback with 26 lunchboxes produced at a temporary
facility on 8th January.
28th January saw the
first run of the season for JR Hokkaidō’s surviving steam run, the ‘SL
Fuyu no Shitsugen’. Operating between Kushiro and Shibecha, an almost
capacity load of about 280 passengers were on the first run from
Kushiro. It also ran on nineteen days in February.
In Demand Asahi Shimbun
The
new cruise trains from JR East (Train Suite Shikishima) and JR West
(Twilight Express Mizukaze), referred to in ‘News Update’ in issues 90
and 91, are attracting strong demand for initial journeys. JR West
revealed on 17th February that it had received 2,022 applications for
368 guest rooms for its initial three months of operation from 17th
June, a ratio of 5.5 applicants to one place. However, the most
competitive was a ratio of 1 to 68 for the most luxurious suite which
occupies a whole carriage for two people at 1.2 million yen each for a
three day run starting on 21st June. 40% of applicants were
from the Kansai area, while 30% were from the Kanto area. Following a
lottery draw, applicants were due to be informed at the end of
February. The overall 1 in 5.5 chance is actually lower than either the
JR East train (1 in 6.6) or JR Kyūshū’s ‘Nanatsuboshi’ (Seven Stars) (1
in 7.3). JR West explains this by referring to its train’s more
frequent schedule.
Railpasses – Better and Worse JR Kyūshū/JR West/JR Tōkai
A
negative development at the end of March was the end of sales to
Japanese residents abroad of the two JR passes, the main Japan Railpass
(final use until end of June) and JR Kyūshū Pass. They are now
restricted
to short-term foreign visitors. This change obviously particularly
impacts foreigners with Japanese partners who are living abroad,
as well as other Japanese with permanent residence in another
country.
More
positive were changes to JR West passes from 10th April. Spurred by the
company’s aim to achieve a five-fold increase in the number of foreign
visitors using their inbound products to Japan, usage of their various
passes has been extended to further stretches of JR West and 3rd-sector
lines as well as JR Chūgoku bus services in the case of its pass
covering the Hiroshima- Yamaguchi area pass. The latter pass, as well
as the Kansai-Hiroshima area pass, can now be used at automatic ticket
gates.
JR Tōkai has added more choices to its area passes for
tourists from abroad. In addition to its own Mt. Fuji-Shizuoka Pass (3
days), plus Takayama-Hokuriku and Ise-Kumano-Wakayama Passes (both 5
days and
jointly with JR West), introduced in July 2016, 1st February saw a new 5-day pass go on sale for use from 15th April, covering the Alpine-Takayama-Matsumoto area.
Preparing Asahi Shimbun
Since
the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, attention has been
focussed on dealing with the latter danger. JR West and KDDI, a
telecommunications company, have developed a virtual reality (VR)
simulation to give drivers a realistic experience of how a tsunami
hitting the 43 km between Kushimoto and Shingu (Kisei Line) would
appear. Drivers use a virtual reality headset and an animated tsunami
is layered on the actual view. The system was due to be introduced in
the Spring at a cost of 20 million yen. Approximately 70 drivers who
work on this section are due to take training sessions twice a
year.
Winner Mainichi Shimbun
The
award of ‘Tetsutabi of the Year’ (Railway Trip of the Year), presented
at the JR East Railway Museum in Saitama City, was won by the new
3rd-sector South Hokkaidō Railway, which has operated local services
between Hakodate and Kikkonai since the start of Hokkaidō Shinkansen
services. Its 4-hour round trip featuring a seafood barbecue and
costing between 8,300 yen and 9,800 yen was selected from among 24
products by a jury chaired by Shin Ashihara, editor in chief of the
‘Trains and Travel’ magazine. The tour generated 3 million yen in
revenue between May and October 2016.
Anniversaries The Japan Times/Chunichi Shimbun
14th March saw the 25th
anniversary of the Tōkaidō/Sanyo Shinkansen’s flagship ‘Nozomi’
service. Initially introduced in 1992 utilising the 270 km/h type 300,
it cut the Tōkyō – Shin-Ōsaka time by 19 minutes and was extended to
Hakata the following year. The introduction of the type 500 in 1997
with a top speed of 300 km/h allowed further reductions in journey
times. Railway journalist, Jun Umehara, indicated that, “It created a
virtuous cycle of more train services and enhanced convenience.”
A
large symbolic birthday cake was unveiled on the same day at Kanazawa
Station to celebrate the second anniversary of the extension of
Hokuriku Shinkansen services from Nagano to Kanazawa.
New Feline Face Asahi Shimbun
5th
January was the first day on the job for another cat at the Wakayama
Electric Railway. Officially appointed by the President, Mitsunobu
Kojima, Yontama is a 8 month old female calico cat. On Wednesdays and
Thursdays from 10:00 to 16:00 at Idakiso Station, she will act as a
stand-in for 6 year old Nitama, who was previously assistant to pioneer
cat, Tama, who died in June 2015. The tenth anniversary of Tama’s
appointment was also commemorated by this event, which was also
attended by Yoshinobu Nisaka, Governor of Wakayama.
Tourist Friendly Japan Today/RocketNews24/Asahi Shimbun
Both
Tōkyō subway operators are trying to improve services for visitors,
particularly with an eye on the coming 2020 Tōkyō Olympics. At its
Meiji-Jingumae station on its Chiyoda and Fukutoshin Lines, near
popular Harajuku and Omotesando, Tōkyō Metro is using Panasonic’
‘Megaphone Translator’ (Megaphone- yaku), which has also been
introduced at Tōkyō’s Narita Airport. As its name suggests, it is
a megaphone which can be used to translate messages in real-time
and can be used for English, Chinese and Korean.
Meanwhile,
the other subway operator, Toei, introduced its first multiple
language/direction indicating ticket machine at Tocho-mae (City Hall)
on its Oedo Line. Users can search by station name, station number,
route map, and tourist attractions. It features a high-definition 32
inch screen and initially covered English, Chinese and Korean. French,
Spanish and Thai were added by the end of March. Tōkyō Metro started
similar services on a trial basis last March and aims to begin
full-scale operations using 155 machines at 69 stations from the 2018
financial year.
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