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OHK (Okayama Broadcasting) has posted some interesting archival footage of the Kibi Line (Okayama-Soja) and around Okayama Station from the 70s and 80s. 1:30 - Bizen Mikado Station. Tickets were available from the shop in front of the station, Nagahara Shoten. 2:20 - Kiha 10 or related type arrives. Students at Kanzei and Okayama Joshi high schools use the station a lot. 2:45 - Bitchu Takamatsu Station. Saijo Inari Gate is immediately northeast of the station, and the Saijo Inari temple complex is a few kilometers up the road. 3:50 - Soja Station. You can see the outline of the former lettering. Once upon a time, Soja was West Soja, and present day East Soja was Soja. 4:30 - Slightly west of Okayama Station, an at-grade crossing causes a lot of backups. Someone in a small white car is in a big hurry. Later in the video we'll see the work to elevate this section of the line. 5:05 - Okayama station, June 1978. A shiny new Kiha 47 arrives at the platform. 5:50 - Higashi (east) Soja. Renewal of the station is complete. I used this station during 2003, this is how I remember it. Based on Google Street View, it's still like this. 6:15 - A Kiha58/28 comes in. I used to go to Okayama City for Japanese class, rolling stock was Kiha 40s 99% of the time, but on a few occasions these were used. I remember riding a bright yellow one with white stripes, and a purple/teal paint job, possibly the Kyuko Notoji and Sakkyu liveries. 6:40 - A statue of Sesshu Toyo is unveiled in the Soja ekimae rotary. 7:10 - Bizen Ichinomiya. If I understand the narration, she is a maybe a contract employee of JNR? She looks like she's in charge. 7:40 - Prelude to the elevetion of the section of track shown at 4:30 8:10 - September 1986, the twilight of JNR. The elevated track is cut in and all is well. 9:00 - December 1988, Bitchu Takamatsu again. A Kiha 40, now with the JR logo, arrives. A new north gate is planned for the station for the convenience of those en route to Saijo Inari. The large gate is shown at 9:25 9:40 - C56 160 is motive power for Kibiji-go excursions for only 3 days during golden week. At the end there's some talk of converting this line to LRT. I've been reading about that before I even lived there, still nothing doing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibi_Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesshū_Tōyō