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Introduction
See the previous articles here:
From "Slam Dunk" to "Detective Conan" — Kuriko’s Japan Trip (4)
As mentioned in the previous article, in this post Kuriko will take everyone to the Omiya Railway Museum — a paradise for train fans.
If you are not interested in trains at all, you can skip this post and stop reading here!
JR Saikyo Line
I'll skip the breakfast at the Hyatt Regency where we were staying, because it was exactly the same as the previous two days.
After breakfast, we planned to meet at 9:30 AM at the south exit of JR Shinjuku Station with a local railfan heavyweight who had studied at the same university and is now doing a Ph.D. in Japan. When we set the meeting spot, everyone in the group teased us: "Hey, Kuriko, you're meeting at the south exit of Shinjuku Station—aren't you afraid no one will be able to find anyone?"
Kuriko said I wasn't worried; railfans have their own ways!
My solution was to meet right in front of the green ticket window at the south exit of JR Shinjuku Station. That should do the trick, right!
We had set 9:00 as the meetup time, but the Japanese railfan heavyweight went into the station early. Kuriko immediately joked, "Hey, if you're acting as the train operator and going into the station early like this, won't you get a talking-to at work? You must have been speeding on the way here." Then we all burst out laughing.
The last time I saw him was in 2009, when we saw off the Beijing-Shanghai direct express New Century No. Z22 in Nanjing. 2009-2019, and we had gone ten years without seeing each other...
After chatting for a bit, the heavyweight took us straight into the station, explaining which platform corresponded to which line as we walked. The one in the photo is the Chūō Main Line platform, where the signboard shows the well-known Chūō Line limited expresses Azusa (bound for Matsumoto) and Kaiji (bound for Kōfu).
The heavyweight led us around for a while, then made a left turn onto the platform. Just then a train was arriving, so we got on.
Since there were hardly any passengers after 9:00, we got on the very first car, which gave us a front-facing view again!
Kuriko saw the sign: Saikyo Line... and thought, isn't this the notoriously "No. 1 groper-rate" train in the Tokyo metropolitan area? Because of its long station spacing and the platform design, it often opens only one side of the doors, which supposedly drives the groper rate insanely high!
PS1: Along this line, the Saikyo Line almost always opened only the right-side doors. But Shinjuku, where Kuriko boarded, and Omiya, where we got off, were exceptions!
PS2: There seems to be an urban legend online? That on the Saikyo Line during the weekday evening rush hour at 6:00 PM, the first car will definitely have a groper... what is this...??? WTF???
We were riding during off-peak hours, and the car was practically empty, so there was definitely no groper!
We passed JR Takadanobaba Station on the Yamanote Line. The departure melody at this station is the theme song from Astro Boy, so if you ever ride the Yamanote Line past this station, keep an ear out!
Along the way, you can see an older E231 series train on the inner loop Yamanote Line (right side) and an E235 series train on the outer loop (left side). E231s really are becoming a rarer and rarer sight these days; I suspect the next time Kuriko comes to Japan, all the E231s will have been repainted yellow and banished to the Chūō-Sōbu Line!
PS: JR Yamanote Line stops at Takadanobaba Station, but the JR Saikyo Line does not, so we just passed it by!
As the train kept rolling, Kuriko absentmindedly said, "Wow, this station is huge, such a major-station vibe — we're finally going to stop." The heavyweight immediately shot back, "Kuriko, what are you talking about? This is Ikebukuro!"
PS1: In the photo you can see two JR Yamanote Line E235 series trains (one is hidden behind a pillar).
PS2: To echo the previous article, you can see the platform on the right side, and we opened the right-side doors...
Watching the driver operate the train is its own kind of fun. A standard JR train cab is just like this: the train operator (driver, the big guy) handles the driving alone, while the conductor opens and closes the doors and announces stations from the rear of the train, and the two can communicate through the telephone in the car.
The throttle/brake controller on this model should be integrated, both controlled with the left hand (the big guy never left his seat, so I couldn't get a photo) — pulling it down accelerates, and pushing it up applies the brakes (if you have never tried it, go play Densha de Go!). The black lever on the right is probably just for holding on and supporting the body.
The paper clipped on the driver's right is the train timetable sheet; the train runs according to the times listed there!
PS: In Japan, there are many train fans. You can take photos of the driver operating the train, or even film a front-view ride with a video camera, and the driver has no authority to stop you. But please remember one thing — never disturb the driver with your voice or physical actions (like banging on the glass). In fact, this is true in any country: disturbing a driver while operating a vehicle, whether a car or a train, can create deadly danger for you and others!!! Please remember that!!!
Once we left Tokyo Metropolis and entered Saitama Prefecture, the JR conventional line ran alongside the Shinkansen. In the photo, you can see the Hokkaido Shinkansen E5 series, fresh from a long run from Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto in Hokkaido, passing us.
PS: Since the Shinkansen tracks are on the left, the platform was always on the right, so only the right-side doors opened...
After a little over forty minutes, we arrived at Omiya Station in Saitama Prefecture (Ōmiya). We got off and took a front shot of the train!
PS1: The train we rode was through-service with the Saikyo Line and the Kawagoe Line, so the LED display showed the Kawagoe Line.
PS2: At Omiya, the left-side doors finally opened...
Omiya Railway Museum
After getting off at JR Omiya Station, there was still some distance to the railway museum, so we needed to transfer to the Omiya City loop shuttle, New Shuttle.
This is the one. Because there are so many railfans, there is a warning sign on the railing that says: Please do not lean over the railing to photograph trains!
The train is coming — let's board!
Before we reached the museum, Kuriko was still worried: How big is the Omiya railway museum? Is it as big as the one in Beijing? Once we arrived, before even going in, we were immediately proven wrong — that worry was unnecessary!
The Omiya City shuttle, New Shuttle, even has a dedicated stop for the Railway Museum, which shows how much the local area values it!
We bought tickets and went in: 1,300 yen per person, 3,900 yen for three people... all I can say is, what a bargain!
If you like trains, paying this admission fee will absolutely not disappoint you!
PS: This railway museum in Omiya is sponsored by JR East. In Japan there are two other major railway museums — the Maglev and Railway Park in Nagoya, sponsored by JR Tokai; and the Kyoto Railway Museum, sponsored by JR West.
There are simply too many exhibits inside, so I’ll just share a few representative ones.
Shimbashi Station, the birthplace of Japanese railways.
Do you still remember the “Railway Song — Tokaido Line” that I mentioned earlier? The very first verse goes like this — With one whistle, we left Shinbashi behind on our train. Leaving Mt. Atago behind, we took the moon as our companion on the journey...
It looks like I found an old friend from America...
The builder’s plate on the steam locomotive — built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1880, so it’s already 139 years old!
The Emperor’s private carriage.
You can see that train cars of that era did not have bogies, and Japanese railways also used 1067 mm narrow gauge, so I believe cars back then couldn’t have been too long — otherwise the wheelsets would bind and grind against the rails because of the narrow gauge. That must have been a blast!
This is a Japanese sleeper train, the legendary “Blue Train” of the time — because Japan’s sleeper trains back then all wore blue liveries. There’s an episode in Chibi Maruko-chan called “Riding the Night Train,” and that’s exactly what this is about!
This museum sleeper car has an observation window at the rear, and outside it hangs the train name “あさかぜ”.
This is another case of the old habit of writing only hiragana and not the kanji. If you want a Chinese translation, it would be Asakaze; its route back then was Tokyo — Hakata.
I came to Japan four years too late, so all of the blue sleeper trains had already disappeared from scheduled service. Maybe every now and then a few consists are pulled out for a nostalgia tourist run, but the odds are very, very low!
Model designation — ナハホフ22 (Nahahofu22) type.
It immediately reminds me of the old YW22 green cars back home, full of childhood memories!!!
The interior looks like this: upper, middle, and lower berths (the middle berth can be folded up), and each berth has a belt to keep you from falling out when the train sways.
This... the domestic YW22 trains are basically identical to this!
A sign for the upper, middle, and lower berths!
Since sleeper cars are not EMUs and have no power of their own, they need to be hauled by a locomotive just like conventional trains in China.
And here are the locomotives: the red one in the distance is the ED75 electric locomotive, and the blue one up close is the EF66.
Born in Showa 43 (1968), manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. At the time, it had the world’s highest power output for narrow-gauge railways at 3900 kW, and I can believe that.
PS1: Some of you may be wondering, can’t the power be increased any further? The answer is simple: the EF66 is a DC electric locomotive, and the catenary supply voltage is only 1500V. If you keep chasing more power, the current in the power supply lines will get too high and kill the substation, tripping the breaker immediately!
PS2: Showa 33 was 1958, so 43 was 1968. A memory trick: there’s a GAL game called “赤線街路 ～昭和33年の初雪～”; please go search the details yourselves. Thanks!
The EF66’s traction motor — this was actually the first time I had seen a train traction motor from such close range.
I have to say, looking at it this way, a 1067 mm gauge really does look narrow!
This is an AC/DC converter on the roof of a train nearby.
Remember what I said earlier? JR Shinkansen uses the standard 1435 mm gauge, and its supply voltage is 25 kV, the same as in China; conventional lines use the 1067 mm narrow gauge, and the supply voltage comes in two types: 1500V DC and 20kV AC.
Since there are both direct current and alternating current lines, you either need to transfer at a station that switches power types, or the train itself has to be equipped with an AC/DC dual-voltage switching device. This is that dual-voltage switching device.
A diamond-shaped pantograph — this is really old-school!
I saw this inside the museum — a conductor simulation experience.
Since my Japanese is limited to the 50 sounds plus just a handful of words, I simply can’t complete the difficult task of making station announcements as a conductor, so I couldn’t try it!
Let’s go up to the second floor and take a look — there’s a model hall here!
This one absolutely had to be photographed — a model of the Shinkansen E2 series!
Aren’t you the prototype of China Railway’s CRH2? Haha!
I found that there’s also a restaurant on the second floor, and it’s actually decorated like the interior of a railway car.
I was hungry anyway, so I sat down to eat!
After eating, I kept wandering around.
This one everyone knows — the pride of Japanese railways, a first-run limited edition 0 Series Shinkansen. The train is displayed in a separate room.
You can see that when the Shinkansen first began service in 1964, there were only Hikari and Kodama, and not today’s Nozomi.
Honestly, this design still doesn’t look outdated even now!
The cab is like this: a green background, a strong Showa-era train vibe, and eyes full of analog gauges and mechanical manual switches.
There’s nothing that can be done about that — after all, this was from 1964, so you can’t ask for too much. This was already the pinnacle of the railway industry at the time!
The seating arrangement is like this: 2-3 facing seats that cannot be rotated.
There’s another room displaying various railway-related equipment and accessories.
For example, this — wooden sleepers and concrete sleepers.
Rail tracks of different weight classes.
A split-flap sign used to display train destinations. You can find videos of these online; the mechanism is ridiculously long, and sometimes it takes more than half a minute to flip to the needed station!
PS1: Because this thing takes so long to cycle, the fronts of electric trains usually use LED/LCD destination displays these days.
PS2: Compared with the destination boards on old conventional trains in China, this is much more advanced. Our boards were cast from steel plate, and when you needed to change them, you had to pull the whole thing off...
This is an antique-level station name sign, of course written only in kana and not in kanji.
Let's see how many I can recognize. From the left: おおふな Ofuna, かまくら Kamakura, くりはま Kurihama, ちがさき Chigasaki — I don't know this one anymore, あたみ Atami... よつや Yotsuya... The last two are easy: しぶや Shibuya, うえの Ueno. Not bad, hehe.
Let's take a look at the turntable in the middle of the Railway Museum.
It's about time; there will be a turntable rotation show here.
EF55 Class No. 1 electric locomotive, built in 1936.
When the time came, the barrier was put up, and the guide stood in front of the locomotive, chattering away as the turntable rotated.
My Japanese isn't very good, so I couldn't understand a word the old guy was saying. But I could tell he was introducing the century-long history of Japan's railways.
The staff member was speaking with great enthusiasm. You could tell he really loved working on the railway, and he also seemed to want to use those words to encourage the countless young railfans there to devote themselves to rail work in the future.
Here I have to marvel at Japan's rail culture; we are still far, far behind in this respect.
This is the Railway Museum's upper observation deck.
On the left, you can see the Shinkansen!
On the right is the conventional line, where you can see a Utsunomiya Line train passing by, heading toward Utsunomiya City in Tochigi Prefecture, the hometown of the Canon camera in my hands.
It's about time to head back home, so first I took the Omiya Kotsu New Shuttle to JR Omiya Station!
Omiya — Ueno, a brief Shinkansen experience
Coming to Japan and not riding the Shinkansen at least once would be a waste, so since Omiya Station has Shinkansen service, I'll take it back to Tokyo Metropolis.
Since I'd already been to Tokyo Station, I chose to ride all the way to Ueno (うえの), the terminal station.
The ticket price is shown in the picture: 1,330 yen for one stop, a bloody limited express surcharge! Here I have to say that back in the day, the additional fare charged for China's K, T, and Z trains compared with four-digit-number ordinary trains was practically negligible!
We bought non-reserved seat tickets. Why? Because they're dirt cheap; reserved seats for a specific train cost extra!
A non-reserved ticket means you are only restricted by the travel segment; you can choose any train you like to get to your destination. In other words, once you're on the platform, just pick a train you like and sit down — as long as it's going the right direction, get off when you arrive!
Right after getting onto the platform, we saw a train coming in — a W7 series train. It didn't seem to be my type, and it also looked a bit crowded, so I couldn't find a seat. Let's wait a little longer.
This is what the platform looks like. You might ask why it looks so empty. The reason is simple: we were traveling against the commuter flow. Who would be commuting toward Tokyo at 4:50 p.m.? Isn't it the opposite flow of people heading home?
Track 14 is for trains coming down from the Tohoku Shinkansen, and Track 13 is for trains coming down from the Hokuriku Shinkansen.
In the end, I chose the 17:07 "Hayabusa" train.
How about it — doesn't this livery look familiar? Yep, this is an E5 series train from the Hokkaido Shinkansen!
Boarding! This is what the interior looks like. Big luggage racks, just like back home!
A 2-3 seating layout — isn't this just like second class on a Chinese EMU or high-speed train?
If I didn't say this was in Japan, would everyone think I was riding a Chinese high-speed train?
It took 40 minutes on a conventional train to get to Omiya, but on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, it took just a little over 20 minutes to almost reach the station.
Everyone can understand the text on the LED display: まもなく うえの — next stop is Ueno, and the left-side doors will open!
JR Ueno Station's Shinkansen platforms are underground, and they're dug very deep; you have to walk a long way to reach the conventional-line platforms and then exit.
So when I said I wanted to get off at Ueno, a big shot in a Japanese railfan group said, "Why not ride to Tokyo? The Shinkansen platforms at Ueno are insanely deep — it'll kill you walking out."
I replied right away: "I've already been to Tokyo Station; going again would be pointless!"
After getting off, I ran into a young Japanese railfan taking train photos on the Ueno platform... sigh, it was like seeing my younger self... I wish I could go back to that carefree time 25 years ago...
Here, I sincerely hope that one day China's railfan atmosphere can be as good as Japan's, so we no longer have to be chased around by station security like thieves, doing that whole — one shutter click and rail service stops — thing!
This... should be the biggest wish of our generation of railfans!
JR Ueno Station — nostalgia for every era, the northern gateway to the Tokyo metropolitan area
JR Ueno Station was unquestionably among the very first, along with Tokyo Station, to be selected for the Kanto Station Top 100 for this very reason.
https://japan.mania.cx/best100/kantoeki/002ueno.html
Back in the day, many long-distance overnight sleeper services originated here, such as the famous sleeper limited expresses Hokutosei and Cassiopeia (Ueno—Sapporo). But as I keep saying, I came to Japan a few years too late, and I can no longer see an EF81 electric locomotive pulling a sleeper express out of Ueno!
Of course, Ueno Station also couldn't escape little Conan's halo; it appears in "Detective Conan 144-145: Hokutosei No. 3 Departing from Ueno"!
As usual, here's a station sign first — Ueno うえの.
Ueno Station has three levels. The Shinkansen is underground, while the first and second levels above ground are for conventional lines.
It looks like Chestnut’s decision to get off at Ueno Station was worth it after all, because the Train Suite Shiki-shima suddenly appeared on the platform, and everyone was busy taking photos with their phones and cameras.
This is Japan’s most luxurious sleeper train. Tickets are not sold separately; they are only sold as part of a travel package... As for the price, go look it up yourselves. Anyway, Chestnut was left utterly speechless when I saw it!
We needed to keep the ticket as a souvenir, so we couldn’t leave through the automatic gate—otherwise the one-way ticket would have been swallowed by the gate!
We had the pro lead us out through the manned exit, and the man at the exit just stamped a big “Invalid Ueno” on it with a thud, and we were out. The ticket was preserved just like that...
Look outside the station: Tianjin sugar-fried chestnuts? Am I that famous? Hehe!
The legendary Ameyoko. It’s said that after World War II this area was where surplus goods from the U.S. military were sold, which is where the name Ameyoko came from—America = アメリカ.
A Japanese version of KFC suddenly appeared.
How does it taste? Chestnut didn’t try it, so I don’t know, but I believe it’s better than KFC in the United States!
Return Trip — JR Yamanote Line Inner Loop
It was getting late, so we planned to take the train back to Shinjuku at a leisurely pace. After checking, the nearest station to us was this one—JR Okachimachi Station.
We entered the station. On the left is the Keihin-Tohoku Line’s little blue train, and on the right is the Yamanote Line’s classic little green train.
The Keihin-Tohoku Line and the Yamanote Line run side by side from Shinagawa in the south all the way to Tabata in the north.
All right, let’s board the Yamanote inner loop and turn slowly as we continue recalling “The Yamanote Line Song” from Rail Song:
[audio mp3="https://www. uscreditcards101. com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019082805055617. mp3"][/audio]
Yamanote Line inner loop: Tokyo (Tokyo)——Kanda (Kanda)——Akihabara (Akihabara)——Okachimachi (Okachimachi)——Ueno (Ueno)——Uguisudani (Uguisudani)——Nippori (Nippori)——Nishi-Nippori (Nishi-Nippori)——Tabata (Tabata)——Komagome (Komagome)——Sugamo (Sugamo)——Otsuka (Otsuka)——Ikebukuro (Ikebukuro)——Mejiro (Mejiro)——Takadanobaba (Takadanobaba)——Shin-Okubo (Shin-Okubo)——Shinjuku (Shinjuku)——Yoyogi (Yoyogi)——Harajuku (Harajuku)——Shibuya (Shibuya)——Ebisu (Ebisu)——Meguro (Meguro)——Gotanda (Gotanda)——Osaki (Osaki)——Shinagawa (Shinagawa)——Tamachi (Tamachi)——Hamamatsucho (Hamamatsucho)——Shinbashi (Shinbashi)——Yurakucho (Yurakucho)——Tokyo (Tokyo).
As shown above, these are all the stations on the line. Chestnut only rode the bolded section, which is roughly the northern half of the Yamanote Line, and it took nearly half an hour.
We arrived in Shinjuku, got off the train, and unexpectedly managed to photograph two old Yamanote E231 series trains!
I had arranged to meet up at 7 o’clock with the former Travel section moderator, and we chose a restaurant upstairs in the Mylord building at Shinjuku Station to eat Sendai beef tongue.
2009-2019 — it had been ten years since we last met as well.
When the Train section moderator meets the Travel section moderator, there is no end of things to talk about. I really wished time could stop here forever... but that was impossible.
Conclusion
After chatting for more than an hour, we took a commemorative photo at the entrance to Shinjuku Station and then said goodbye... I really don’t know when we’ll meet again next.
To end, here’s one photo of Shinjuku Central Park, taken from Hyatt Regency.