JAPAN | Railways

[quashlo]

Hakone Tozan Railway reveals conceptual design for new train

The Hakone Tozan Railway, a major tourist-oriented mountain railway in the Hakone area just west of Tōkyō, has recently revealed the conceptual design for a new 3000 series train. These will be the first new trains on the railway since the additional 2000 series trains that arrived in 1997.

Some pictures:
Source: http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/natori/

The new trains are designed with a higher capacity to better handle the large heavy crowds during the tourist season, and are barrier-free, with designated wheelchair spaces. The 3000 series is primarily intended to be coupled with the two-car 2000 series St. Moritz trains, and will be the railway’s first new double-ended units since the 1000 series Bernina units, allowing for all trains during the tourist season to be operated in three-car formations.



Being one of Japan’s many mountain railways and a member of the 全国登山鉄道‰会 (Japanese Mountain Railway Permil Association), the new trains are designed to allow passengers to enjoy the mountain scenery of Hakone, a fairly large resort area. The new trains have been designed by Noriake Okabe Architecture Network, which has also designed the popular Romancecar 50000 series VSE and 60000 series MSE units for Odakyū Electric Railway, the parent company of the Hakone Tozan Railway.





Seating will be transverse and concentrated in the center of the cars, with wheelchair and observation space at the ends. Signage will be in the now-standard four languages. The two new cars will be completed in October 2013 at a total cost of ¥800 million, entering revenue service in April 2014.

[quashlo]

JR Kyūshū releases details on new luxury sleeper train

In an era when sleeper trains are going the way of the dinosaurs, we have some comforting news from JR Kyūshū regarding their planned new luxury sleeper service that will travel the full circumference of Kyūshū on a three-night, four-day itinerary. The train has been named 七つの星 in 九州 (Seven Stars in Kyūshū), representing the seven prefectures of the island (Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Miyazaki, and Ōita), Kyūshū’s seven tourist draws (nature, food, onsen hot springs, culture / history, spiritual power, humanity, and trains), and the seven passenger cars forming the train. This is another design effort by Mitooka Eiji of Don Design Associates, building on his already extensive portfolio for JR Kyūshū.

The special website is here:
Japanese: http://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/cruisetrain/
English: http://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/cruisetrain/

Since they’ve gone through all the effort of making an English page, they’re obviously also targeting foreign tourists for this service.

Some pictures:
Source: http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/natori/

As is standard for Mitooka designs, the train gets its own unique logo.



Formations will consist of seven passenger cars pulled by a refurbished DF200 diesel locomotive.



The end of the train will have an open design, affording better views than even the Cassiopeia, a current luxury sleeper service between Tōkyō and Hokkaidō.



Car 1: Lounge car
Car 2: Dining car
Cars 3-7: Suites (3 per car)
Car 8: Deluxe “DX” suites

Based on this, there will be 12 regular suites and two deluxe suites, for a total capacity of 14 couples (28 passengers).



Lounge car
There will be ample use of wood and fabrics, bringing together Japanese and Western, modern and traditional together. The lounge car will feature a bar counter and piano for live performances.









Deluxe suites







Start of service is scheduled for October 2013. For the full three-night, four-day itinerary, a regular suite will be ¥380,000, the regular deluxe suite ¥500,000, and the deluxe suite at the very rear of the train will be ¥550,000. For a one-night, two-day itinerary, the cost will be ¥150,000, ¥200,000, and ¥220,000, respectively. The train will run once a week.

[Momo1435]

Originally Posted by quashlo

Hakone Tozan Railway reveals conceptual design for new train

The Hakone Tozan Railway, a major tourist-oriented mountain railway in the Hakone area just west of Tōkyō, has recently revealed the conceptual design for a new 3000 series train. These will be the first new trains on the railway since the additional 2000 series trains that arrived in 1997.

It would be fun if they would buy the next new trains from Stadler Rail.

[Woonsocket54]

I hope the Kyushu luxury train is taking its passengers straight to the plastic surgeon's office. Emergency face transplants for everyone!

[Xoser_barcelona]

Nice train, I see the attraction and am sure the service will be impecable. However somehow it feels as out of place as Huis ten Bosch on Kyushu and I personally would have rather seen a Ryokan style train with onsen car than this somewhat Europeanesque set up. Unless dressing up as early 20-century rich white person is the new cosplay of the year?

[quashlo]

Well, I'm sure Huis ten Bosch doesn't appeal much to Western tourists, but it's mainly targeting domestic tourists anyways, so it only needs to appeal to Japanese (and to a lesser extent, visitors from other parts of Asia). Even for this, they may have set up an English web site, but they're still primarily targeting domestic tourists.

On the surface, I suppose the sketches look pretty "European", but I wouldn't be fooled by all the stand-in models. The Japanese influence is there... The deluxe suite sketch with the old dude in white sitting down reading a book has plenty of Japanese elements, including the kakejiku calligraphy scrolls, the sudare bamboo blinds, the green tatami bamboo mats, and the shōji paper lattice screens. If you look at the first large conceptual sketch showing the deluxe suite car with the giant window, that one actually looks mostly Japanese, with the chōchin paper lanterns, bonsai tree, and ikebana display. There's some other minor hints like the bed and chair moquettes that look like maki-e gold-and-black lacquer.

Not sure why the two sketches look different, but these are just sketches anyways... I suppose maybe the suite could be designed to allow for easy remodeling to allow them to do seasonal switches between Western- and Japanese-style design, or (perhaps more likely) they will have two separate cars.

I somehow don't think an onsen car would be very practical, but perhaps they could have gone with some Japanese-style seating with a kotatsu (table heater) or something.

[k.k.jetcar]

Looking at the pics, I was somewhat reminded of scenes you would see on Meitantei Conan or some such mystery show.

[nouveau.ukiyo]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn2...l#.T-5gzRe_GTI

Bullet-train extensions approved

Kyodo

Transport minister Yuichiro Hata on Friday approved the construction of three shinkansen extensions worth a combined ¥3.04 trillion that will go into operation by the end of fiscal 2035.

The three segments are a 211-km route between Hakodate, Hokkaido and Sapporo, a 113-km segement between Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, and Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, and a 21-km link between Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, and the city of Nagasaki.

It is the first approval for shinkansen line construction with the Democratic Party of Japan in power. The last approval was in March 2008, for a section between Takeo Onsen, Saga Prefecture, and Isahaya.

[quashlo]

JR Freight announces development of two new locomotives

Official press release is here:
http://www.jrfreight.co.jp/common/pd.../201207-03.pdf

EF210-301
This will be the successor to the EF67 types used to push trains up the steep grades on the Seno – Hachihonmatsu section of the San’yō Main Line in the Hiroshima area. The EF67s are over 40 years old now, and this new locomotive is based on the EF210 types, with a new type of coupler featuring a silicon buffer. Completion is expected on 2012.09.03.



EH800-901
This will be a dual-voltage unit capable of running under 20 kV and 25 kV DC and featuring Shinkansen DS-ATC (digital ATC) signaling. Completion is expected in autumn 2012. This new locomotive is designed exclusively for dual use of the Seikan Tunnel by both Shinkansen and zairaisen trains, which is coming in only a few years when the Shinkansen extension to Shin-Hakodate opens in 2015.

[ukiyo]

JR East To Develop Next-Gen Train Control System

TOKYO (Nikkei)--East Japan Railway Co. (9020) is moving toward adopting a next-generation train control system as part of its efforts to upgrade the railway system in greater Tokyo by improving operations and streamlining facilities.

The new system, called communications-based train control (CBTC), is different from conventional automatic control systems and does not require traffic lights. It will detect train locations via radio communications and automatically control rail traffic.

JR East is ready to start development with system manufacturers for implementation on the Joban local line, which runs between Tokyo and neighboring prefectures. If everything goes smoothly, the system will be introduced in about 10 years.

The company through Sunday had solicited firms interested in participating in the project. The candidates have been asked to prepare proposals containing a system overview, functions, estimated costs and other information by the end of October.

By year's end, JR East will select one or two companies with which to discuss further details, and will make the final decision by the end of next year.

http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120716D1607N01.htm

[gramercy]

how are they progressing with the Train on Train project?

[coth]

Originally Posted by ukiyo

does not require traffic lights. It will detect train locations via radio communications and automatically control rail traffic.

It's not really next-gen. It's been there for quite a long and adopted by a number of urban rail systems around the world.

[ukiyo]

It is next generation from the current system...hence...next gen.

[quashlo]

Yeah, ukiyo is right... It's not meant to say that it's advanced, just that it's going to be the successor of the current system.

Anyways, most CBTC operations are usually simple back-and-forth operations with fully grade-separated traffic. The section selected for this CBTC experiment is the Jōban Local Line (Ayase ‒ Toride), which is already fully grade-separated (this probably happened when they quadruple-tracked the line decades ago to provide segregated rapid and local services as part of 五方面作戦).

Part of the impetus for JR East in developing its own system (ATACS) was to deal with the unique situations present in most urban transit in Japan, such as the high frequency of grade crossings, complexity of through-services, local / express setups, etc. All of these functions would need to be controlled by the software, so ATACS is much more like ETCS Level 3 than a simple CBTC system.

As always, the details are obscured, but my inclination is that this latest news is just an investigation into the cost-effectiveness of CBTC, as there are a handful of other lines in the Tōkyō area like the Jōban Local Line where the full package of ATACS functions wouldn't necessarily be needed, such as the Chūō Rapid Line, Chūō‒Sōbu Local Line, Yamanote Line, Keiyō Line, Saikyō Line, etc.

[japanese001]

[japanese001]

[japanese001]

[japanese001]

[japanese001]

[zergcerebrates]

Originally Posted by japanese001

^ Thats cool, love the emblem and the color of the train gives a very royalty feel. Had no idea theres this type of train.