[PRCo] Re: Japanese Trams and EMUs

[Bill Robb]

Here's a couple more web sites that may be of interest.
The Japanese Railway Society has accounts of  British railfan visits to Japan.  Much antique equipment remains in use in Japan on interurban lines.  Many of the remaining trams in Japan use K style hand controllers and hand brakes.  Growling gears are still common place in Japan and those cars have A/C units on the roof. Even cars built into the 60s kept their tradtitional running gear. 

Click on General Items or Private Railways links, but there also is a vintage JR EMU on the JR and Freight  link.

http://www.japaneserailwaysociety.com/index.htm
 
Kitayama Rail lists rail lines by line and station, but it's best feature is links to highly detailed maps on Mapion showing tram lines and rail lines.
 
http://bae.se/kitayama/index.htm
 
This the map for Umeda Station in Osaka
 
http://www.mapion.co.jp/c/f?el=135/30/4.048&pnf=1&uc=1&grp=MapionBB&nl=34/42/8.475&size=950,760
 
Unfortunately the text is in Japanese.

Kitayama also has a small photo gallery with photos of modern and vintage equipment.

http://bae.se/kitayama/photoindex.htm

A 1926 vintage EMU still in service  on the Kotoden interurban line:

http://bae.se/kitayama/photos/k_en_shikoku_6.htm

And finally, TCRP Report 52, "Joint Operation of Light Rail Transit or Diesel Multiple Unit Vehicles with Railroads" has alot information in Chapter 8 on Japanese interurbans.

http://www.trb.org/TRBNet/ProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=1002

Bill Robb


----- Original Message ----
From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2007 5:53:40 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: [PRCo]


I said something to Derrick privately that I was surprised that no  
one reared up about my German posts.   He suggested that perhaps some  
were stewing privately.   I will openly say, Bill, that your Japanese  
post does not offend Fred.   While I've never been to any place in  
Asia, I would love the opportunity to see Japan before I die.  We  
seem to have trouble making vending machines that work right and they  
can make ticket machines that can vend 10,000 tickets a day without a  
glitch.   Everytime some friend of mine came back from Japan, I was  
just drooling over their images.   I remember sitting in Norm Vutz's  
home one night looking at movies that Russ Jackson took in Japan ...  
the frequency of service simple stretches ones imagination to the  
breaking point.   Russ would make comments such as, "they simply do  
not permit trains to run late because allowing one train to run a  
minute late would screw up the whole railroad until after midnight."

Then he would go on to describe how express and local trains could  
work the same double track railroad ... how you could stand on a  
station platform and look for miles down a straight track and  
simultaneously see two or three local trains pull into station  
platforms as express trains go zooming by.    And then I understood  
what he meant when he said, "We simply don't permit running trains a  
minute late."

The closest example I ever saw was Switzerland where I saw late  
trains ... maybe a minute or two but never late enough that I missed  
a connection at any station.    I always had the impression that  
running a train five minutes late in Switzerland was grounds for a  
reprimand, ten minutes would cost someone his head, and 30 minutes  
would result in a national inquiry.    When you looked at the Swiss  
Kurzbuch and saw that you could make a three minute connection  
between trains, and somewhere else on the system that day you have a  
five minute connection, that simply means go ahead and buy the ticket  
because you'll make the connection.   One can only believe Japan is  
the same unless you are trying to swim upstream against a million  
people coming out of station in downtown Tokyo in the morning rush hour.

On May 1, 2007, at 2:42 PM, Bill Robb wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Fred Schneider
>
> The link leads to a local German fan's web site which shows preserved
> 1910 subway cars on a fantrip in Hamburg, Germany.   One word works
> in my mind, fantastisch.   You just have to either bear with me or
> evict me but I have this nasty habit of educating and somethings I
> think my purpose is to educate when somewhere else in the world has
> something his beautiful.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Well then, how about some material from Japan:
>
> http://www.jrtr.net/start.html
>
> English language PDF versions of Japan Railway & Transport Review  
> with much material on EMUs and some on light rail.
>
> __________________________________________________
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