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Last autumn season for the 381 series. Very nice videography on the Hakubi Line, with various liveries of the Limited Express Yakumo. At 4:45 one of the four daily container freights that use this line, headed by an EF64. *As an aside I will do a round trip on the Yakumo service later this month (Okayama-Izumo-shi) on an all-day out and back excursion by using the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen (Nozomi) to get to Okayama from Shin-Yokohama. Will be my last ride on these iconic trainsets.

In JR West's March 15th schedule revision there's an interesting change. KIHA189 series DMUs, built in the last few years to replace the JNR-era 181s used on Hamakaze services, will be assigned to a Biwako Express run on weeknights, departing Osaka at 8:36PM and arriving at its destination, Kusatsu, at 9:27PM. After initially thinking what the !@#$, I assumed this train was coming off a Hamakaze run that conveniently puts it at Osaka to operate this service. The second poster in the Ompuchaneru thread writes just that, it arrives at Osaka as Hamakaze #6. It still seems quite strange for a DMU to be used on a service that's in an entirely electrified section, and a later poster writes that the only others are some JR Shikoku limited express services on the Yosan Line. Also in the thread (http://rail-uploader.khz-net.com/index.php?id=1128280), a poster bemoans JR West's schedule changes. It used to become gradually more convenient, now it gradually becomes more inconvenient . Another replies that it's got to do with Japan's population changes. JR West's pdf: http://www.westjr.co.jp/press/article/items/131220_00_kinki.pdf