new Nankai 8300 series from Kinki Sharyo

[miyakoji]

Two 4-car sets of Nankai's new 8300 series were delivered from Kinki Sharyo on the 29th, the first time in about 40 years the manufacturer has built anything for this railway.  Every Nankai train I've ever been aware of was built by Tokyu/J-Trec.  After leaving Kinki behind DE10 1192 via the connection at Tokuan, the formation was pulled to Suita Freight Terminal.  From there, DD51 1191 took it down the Umeda freight bypass to the west side of the loop around Nishi-Kujo, on to Tennoji, and apparently east to Oji.  I assume they continued south via the Wakayama Line.  Maybe the Hanwa Line is a little too busy for this less-than-shinkansen speed move :).  Interchange between JR West and Nankai is all the way down at Wakayama-shi, which can been seen in the second video below.

 

http://railf.jp/news/2015/06/30/120000.html

 

crossing the Kanzaki River Bridge on the Joto Freight Line, by hankyudensha

 

at Wakayama-shi Station, by jnrkiiline.  Cool lineup from 5'00", but we don't see the DD51 depart...

Edited July 1, 2015 by miyakoji

[bikkuri bahn]

Sigh.  It's basically a later mark of the 8000 series, a Tokyu/J-Trec design.  Probably J-Trec is backed up with orders, so Kinki Sharyo was mailed the plans and took up production.

[miyakoji]

Kinki Sharyo was mailed the plans and took up production.

I imagine a manila envelope arriving, and some clerks ignoring it for a few months until it was opened mostly by accident.  After passing it around as a project no one really wanted, some guy who wasn't skilled in saying no got stuck with it and prepped the assembly line for production.  After this he'll go back to getting tea for co-workers until the next unwanted task comes along :)

[kvp]

The original 8000 series was 7 sets, then a few years later another 2. Now 5 sets. The next order might end up at Niigata Transys as they are the largest really small series manufacturer. What surpises me is that the japanese manufacturers are willing to share design information between each other and problably have to use the same parts suppliers. With the JNR standard designs that was understandable, but nowdays they should be competing with each other.

[Densha]

but nowdays they should be competing with each other.

Should they? I don't know the Japanese situation, but your views may have been copied from the European Union that forces this kind of thing upon (semi-)governmental companies. I don't know if Kinki Sharyo and Tokyu/J-Trec are private companies or owned by the Japanese government, but if they're private companies there's nothing to worry about is there? In that case it's just a normal collaboration between companies.

 

Actually European train manufacturers also work together, for example the NS SLT EMUs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Sprinter_Lighttrain

Half of them were built by Siemens and half of them by Bombardier.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Densha

[miyakoji]

Well there's this push for standardization, and it seems customary that orders are split among builders, so sharing that information seems unavoidable.

 

How much of the design comes from the railway, and how much is left to the builder? Is it possible that even construction methods are specified?

[ToniBabelony]

There have been a cross-breeding of trains for a while in Japan already, so it's not rare to see trains being built by multiple companies. The Keisei 3600 for example has been built by both Tōkyū and Nippon Sharyō. Another example is the JNR DD51, which has been built by Hitachi, Kawasaki and Mitsubishi. Crazier even with the JNR DF50, which has been constructed by New-Mitsubishi, Kisha-seizō, Nippon Sharyō, Kawasaki, Tōshiba and Hitachi.

 

I guess when contracts are followed, technical information is only kept for the materials that are contracted, and there is trust in that sense, practices like these can co-exist, even between rivals. This is also the case in the automotive industry, e.g. direct cooperation between Nissan-Renault, Mercedes, and Mitsubishi Motors, and I think it's the same in a LOT of other industries as well.

 

P.s. the front design of this train is terrible. Really bad. The rest is probably great.

Edited July 1, 2015 by Toni Babelony

[kvp]

Half of them were built by Siemens and half of them by Bombardier.

They were building the original DB units as a consortium too, so they submitted the original proposal as a single group. These companies are considered allied and not as rivals. This might be the case with Kinki Sharyo and J-Trec. Although there is a difference between plans made by a railway and contracted out to multiple companies for production (like in case of DRG/DB and JNR standard stock) and plans made by a group of companies and submitted as a single group (like the case of the sprinters, where main parts are split and produced only by one company, but assembly is done by both). Does the Kinki Sharyo sets have any J-Trec or common 3rd party components?

[miyakoji]

I think some parts are built by common 3rd parties, like the truck frames and couplers, propulsion and control electrics, brakes, air compressors, HVAC.  Some of these manufacturers could be common to rolling stock all over the country; for example I remember seeing the Sumitomo logo on trucks and couplers, and lots of brakes are built by NABCO.