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The Metropolitan Intercity Railway Company has placed an order for new Tsukuba Express TX-3000 series trains. Five 6-car formations will be delivered from Spring 2020. They will be used in addition to the current fleet of TX-1000 and TX-2000 trains. Source: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO31514700X00C18A6L60000/

Toei has announced the 5500 series for the Asakusa Line. The exterior design 'tells you it is fast' and has a livery using colours inspired by Kabuki theatre. The interior 'evokes the image of traditional Japanese washi paper' and features patterns of the Edo Kiriko glass craft. The train features a wheelchair space, larger open spaces around the doors and more hand handles. Seats will also be wider than those of the current trains. The maximum speed of the Toei 5500 series is 120 km/h, opposed to the 110 km/h of the current 5300 series rolling stock from 1991. The first new unit will be delivered in Spring 2018, after 7 other units will be delivered in the same year. The other units replacing the remaining 5300 series will be delivered subsequently, to make it in time for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Source: https://trafficnews.jp/post/61002/

This is a strange and fabulous company that deserves its own topic. It's a railway line that is not covered much by fans, as it's quite remote and relatively expensive to travel on. That is, if you're not looking beyond your own field of perception. More on that later. The Kantō Railway (関東鉄道) is owned by the Keisei Group and operates two lines. Both are fully dieselised and are operated with 3-door DMU. - One is the very short Ryūgasaki line (4,5km), starting at Sanuki on the JR Jōban line and ending in Ryūgasaki in the sticks. It's a very charming line that runs through the fields and only has three diesel cars in operation. Two of them are new types (no. 2001 and 2002), of which one only runs on Sunday with a special promotional livery. And the third one is an older type (no. 532), based on a modified JNR KiHa 20, which occasionally runs in the weekends. - The second one is the Jōsō line from Toride, also strarting on the JR Jōban line (far end of the 1500V DC area) and ending in Shimodate on the JR Mito line (20kV AC 50Hz area). There the Mooka Railway (famous for its C11 and C12 steam trains in the weekend) also has its starting point. There are day passes in the weekend for ¥1500 which can be used to travel the whole of the Jōsō line. It's kind of a strange pass, since it allows you to travel for less than the entire line in one go! From Toride to Shimodate it costs ¥1510 and it's only one way, whereas the day ticket allows you to travel as much as you like the whole day. So, I did. That day, I also obtained a free to use rental bicycle at Mitsukaidō station (水海道) and rode to the line's car shed to snap pictures of the rolling stock that rarely runs nowadays. It looks like they're saving some up for a museum of some sort. They certainly have the space for it as opposed to other railway companies! Rental cycles could only be obtained with a valid drivers licence or a valid health insurance card. Basically something that states your place of residence in Japan, so for foreign tourists they may decline this request. Also, Tobanoe station (騰波ノ江) celebrated it's 88th birthday this weekend, so I paid them a visit after traveling the network. It was very small, but they did have a small N gauge layout and a respectable H0 layout that reflected the Jōsō line network. I also was asked to draw a picture on a glass that would be used for a candle for later that day. I didn't stay that long though, as we had to get up early in the morning and drive back to our place in Kanagawa. We exchanged business cards and had a little chat. It was a very warm and cosy event. Jōsō line: Ryūgasaki line: The Kantō Railway certainly has left a deep impression on me. Especially, the Jōsō line is a very interesting line, as it's halfway double tracked and fully dieselised with 3-door trains that remind of the commuter trains of the metropolitan lines. The reason this is like it is, is because the line runs through two different national electricity networks (or whatever it's called). Basically, it would be hugely expensive to electrify the line and buy rolling stock that can operate on both 1500V DC and 20kV AC 50Hz. The line also runs through rural areas only, so this would probably be a moot investment. At least for now. As the Tōkyō metropolitan area keeps expanding, I wouldn't be surprised to see this line being electrified within the next 30 years, or maybe even be connected to the Tsukuba Express for that matter... It's a fantasy though. It would certainly be beneficial to a lot of towns along the line to have a fast connection to Tōkyō methinks. You never know what the future might bring and what Keisei Group comes up with now! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the shoddy pictures and I hope the Kantō railway has also gained your hearts and minds a little bit. I will certainly travel this line again when I'm back in Shimodate!

A substantial zenmen tenbou of the Super Odoriko service, recorded from directly behind the driver on a 251 series EMU. Very good vantage point. I didn't know this run was so long. By uploader HKASAMA.

For the 25th anniversary of the Sega video game series Sonic the Hedgehog, Keikyu will give a 2100 series train a wrapping advertising. This will basically be the BLUE SKY TRAIN with some additional stickers. In addition, Otorii station on the Keikyu Airport Line, next to the Sega headquarters, will receive a commemorative sticker on its station signs. Both the Keikyu Sega Train and the sticker at Otorii can be seen from 14 November to 17 December this year. Source: http://www.keikyu.co.jp/company/news/2016/20161107HP_16155YM.html

This was mentioned in a thread on Ompuchaneru. Keio's mid-term business plan, released on May 8, mentions their study of for-fee services as a new revenue source. Unfortunately there are no concrete details. This is their 3-year plan covering this year to 2017. In 2020 JR East will have green cars on the Chuo Line. The Chuo and Keio's main line are roughly parallel, but fairly far apart for most of the distance. I'm not familiar with competition or "cross ridership" between these two lines. Is this a response to JR East? http://rail-uploader.khz-net.com/index.php?&id=44689 http://www.keio.co.jp/company/stockholder/results_briefing/pdf/2015_briefing_reference.pdf http://trafficnews.jp/post/39973/ http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXLASDZ07HYX_X00C15A5TI0000/

Two 01 series cars have been transported all the way to Kumamoto Dentetsu to enter service in March. These were delivered in several generations over about 14(!) years, counting from the test formation built by Kawasaki in September 1983 to the single 6th generation formation built by Kinki in August 1997. These two were the end cars of the last 4th generation formation, built by Nippon Sharyo, in June 1992. I would not have thought that they were so old. http://railf.jp/news/2015/02/22/160000.html and Kumamoto Dentetsu is installing the Kawasaki EF-Wing trucks, video by Toshiyuki Saiba You're not getting me under that thing...

In case anyone is interested, this program will be shown four times on Tuesday, 1:30 to 1:55, 7:30 to 7:55, 10:30 to 10:55, and 19:30 to. 19:55. All times UTC. program page: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/72hours/index.html main schedule: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/tv/schedule/

In 2017, JR East will update and expand its Railway Museum near Omiya Station. It will be the museum's 10th anniversary, and 30th anniversary of the establishment of the company itself. Built south of the existing structure, the addition will raise the museum's total display space to 14,800 square meters, about 1.5 times its present size. There will be various themes including work, history, the future, and travel in the context of railways, in addition to the main hall's themes of rolling stock and science, presenting a variety of view points on the history of railways and people. The "work" themed area will include E5 and 400 series shinkansen rolling stock, as well as a new E5 simulator with a dramatic, high resolution panorama-sized screen. http://railf.jp/news/2014/11/06/173000.html

Here's a nice video compilation of JR East Tokyo-area services that have changed with the March 15, 2014 schedule revision. Videos by tiyodarain (chiyoda line, I think).

This came up in Tetsudou Fan's newsfeed twice in the last few days: http://railf.jp/news/2014/03/15/194500.html http://railf.jp/news/2014/03/13/150000.html The functions served by this Nippon Paper Industries warehouse will be moved to Soka City in Saitama, and there are no other customers on the line. Official decommissioning will be July 1st, but it saw its last revenue train on March 14th around 2:45 PM. Fortunately the railfans were on site and have provided some nice YouTube videos: DE10 1666 on its way to Kita-Oji Station, by dd51de10 Arriving at Kita-Oji Station (basically Nippon Paper's loading dock, as far as I can tell) and then leaving with the last load, by tebure1 Back to Tabata yard, by dd51de10 A run-by at Oji passenger station, by Daisuke FUJII: Paper or printing operations at this site go back to May 1910. Japan's National Printing Bureau had a printshop near or on this site at that time, and the station was known as Shimo-Jujo. Oji Paper acquired this in 1916, and permission to operate a spur was obtained in August 1926. Transport began soon after, with chemical companies being providing other work for the line. In the early Showa period, Japan's armament industry was expanding, and as this line served an armory near Oji 6-chome, it was nationalized under the Ministry of Railways on December 20, 1927. The line was not electrified, but because of the munitions there was hesitation about using steam locomotives, so the battery-powered AB10 was developed for this application. It seems that it was electrified at some point; pantographs were added to the AB10s in 1931 and they were reclassified as type EB10. Factories and warehouses along the line continued to operate in peacetime, and at its peak in 1969, the line saw 5 trains daily. Recently, Nippon Paper's warehouse has had 3 services per day. In the second google map below, you can see the station's yard, which looks like good source of inspiration for a layout . There are 4 sidings plus the main track at the platform. There's a fair bit of switching, which appears to provide escape track for a locomotive toward the north end of any track in the yard. Kind of a shame about closing this down, I think these freight spurs (this was 4km long) add operational interest and a bit of mystery in that as a passenger, it's difficult to figure out what they're for and where they go, and they provide something for me to read about on Wikipedia . It's also unfortunate from a practical point of view; according to the station's wikipedia page (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97%E7%8E%8B%E5%AD%90%E9%A7%85 in Japanese) tonnage was going up from about 1998 to 2008, the last year that figures are provided on that page. Nippon Paper currently has a warehouse in Soka City Aoyagi 1-chome. It's not clear if this is the facility taking on the work of the Kita-Oji Warehouse, but if it is, it has no rail connection. The line starts somewhere in Tabata yard: http://goo.gl/maps/qizQJ And after passing Oji and Kami-Nakazato, it splits off and ends at the warehouse, here: http://goo.gl/maps/5lc5M

While speaking with cteno4 at the JRM display in New York, he mentioned that the front-view videos posted here are useful as examples for layouts. Yesterday I happened upon the video below, which shows some very close-up detail, if covered with snow. This is a walking tour around the Yanaka neighborhood, which is on the inside of the Yamanote loop between Nippori and Nishi-Nippori stations. Uploaded by taoyakani, his text with the video indicates that the path of the walk is Miurasaka (slope) → cedars at temple town → Kan'eiji ( temple) → Yanaka cemetery → Nippori station. The recording was made starting at 1:47PM on February 14th, 2014. Start near the bottom of Miura Hill: http://goo.gl/maps/7kLZ9 Kan'ei Temple: http://goo.gl/maps/03O0A Nippori Station: http://goo.gl/maps/AnmqJ

There's a thread on Ompuchaneru about JRE's schedule revision that will take effect on March 15th of next year. The first poster (http://rail-uploader.khz-net.com/index.php?id=1128238) summarizes: E3s will be completely withdrawn from Komachi services, and the name Super Komachi will not be used. All services will operate at 320km/h and be called Komachi some Hayate services that are non-stop between Omiya and Sendai, and then stop at each station beyond Sendai, will be changed to Hayabusa. Several trains will be operated as 17-car formations E7s will be used on some Asama services on the Nagano Shinkansen, and the conversion to digital ATC will be expedited of all Akagi and Kusatsu roundtrip services departing Shinjuku, one will continue to run with 185 series trains while the rest will be the refurbished E651s. weekday Akagi services will be renamed Swallow Akagi, and the Homeliner Konosu will be changed to a limited express service and extended to Honjo there will be 6 midday locals per hour on the Joban Line between Ayase and Abiko, rather than 5. This is a train every 10 minutes instead of every 12 morning Chuo Liners starting at Hachioji will increase, using 351 series trains Nambu Line rapids will no longer stop at Nakanojima and Yanoguchi, and locals that now run between Kawasaki and Noborito will be extended to Inagi-Naganuma there will be consideration of increasing Musashino services, changing their schedule, and adding service at Kunitachi, Hino, and Toyoda stations two Homeliner Koga services will be removed, and they will no longer serve Ueno. Local services will be added. limited express Wakashio services will be reduced, and Odoriko #102 will no longer run on weekdays the Akebono will be discontinued and changed to a special service The extension of the Konosu to Honjo appears to be 35.7km, which seems substantial. The Akebono will be considered a rinji service, which I sometimes see translated as extra or temporary. Things are not looking good for the 185s, but it doesn't seem like this is the absolute end for them, while the 351s have a solid new role, at least until the next revision. pdf link here: http://www.jreast.co.jp/press/2013/20131217.pdf Japanese readers please feel free to post corrections :grin

I got some positive feedback in the chatroom about my posting of a cab view video of JR West's Yuttari Yakumo service (http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/5821-jr-west-hakubi-line-yuttari-yakumo-full-ride-okayama-to-izumo-shi/) on the Hakubi Line, particularly about how parts of it are single tracked. Well, from a posting by loefet on SSC, I found this excellent recording of JR East's Resort Yamadori train on the Agatsuma Line running from Takasaki to Manza-Kazawaguchi and I thought some people may enjoy it as well, it seems almost like a Kanto-area version of the Hakubi Line. JR East rolled out the 6-car Resort Yamadori train in 2011, a rework of two separate, older 485 series-based excursion trains, the Seseragi and the Yamanami. The set is based at Takasaki Depot and is named after the Gunma Prefectural bird, the copper pheasant. by YT uploader raraemondayo777: http://yossee.main.jp/train2/yamadori/index.html http://www.jreast.co.jp/tabidoki/resorttrain/yamadori/index.html http://www.jreast.co.jp/takasaki/yamadori/index.html http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AA%E3%82%BE%E3%83%BC%E3%83%88%E3%82%84%E3%81%BE%E3%81%A9%E3%82%8A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatsuma_Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Pheasant

Possibly some ideas for layouts. All Kanto, but good nonetheless... Odakyu Bus - Inagi City iBus, nice autumn/winter afternoon in western Tokyo-to; by puku0987 Tokyu Bus - Shibuya to Shibuya, Daikanyama circuit, I think this is the rich part of town; by puku0987 Tokyo Metropolitan Bus route ume70, longest route in Tokyo-to by puku0987 by keiseibusN126 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez0D9vpldSk