new KOKI73 container car

[miyakoji]

Here's a new container car type, the KOKI73.  Interesting design, those low profile wheels will be tiny in N scale :).  Also mentioned in the Tetsudou Fan news link, Nippon Sharyo also shipped two new KOKI107s with this, so road numbers 1259 and 1260 are now prototypically correct, in case you buy a lot of KOKIs .

 

http://railf.jp/news/2016/01/09/205000.html

 

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/takemas21/35580912.html

 

by 101seibu:

 

by ASUKOOTO:

 

by dd51de10:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJyGX4dL7Qs

[Nick_Burman]

JRF is ogling the ISO container market - these cars are for international-dimension containers.

 

Cheers NB

[kvp]

Iso high cube to be precise as the normal ones should fit on the normal cars with one per car. (the height difference is around 35 cm with length and width matching) The wheels on these cars look to be around the size of tomytec tram wheels, but the bogies and the frames are really low profile.

[SuRoNeFu 25-501]

The frame is really low enough, even it is almost having similar height with Indonesia's flat cars (which the coupler height is about 30 to 50 cm lower than the Japanese ones)...

[miyakoji]

I think Nick is right.  While the yahoo blog link I included above says that the car's purpose is unclear, here are two interesting tweets:

 

https://twitter.com/katashina113/status/685359730181537792

 

https://twitter.com/umi_hama_2nd/status/685479522901213184

 

 

In the first one, I think it's illustrated that a high cube won't be within loading gauge even on a KOKI100, which is lower than a KOKI50000.  In the second one he just says that the car is for the ISO standard tall 40 foot container.

 

There have been three previous KOKI7x types, predictably the 70, 71 and 72.  Built in small quantities (2 test cars, 2 test cars plus 6 production cars, and 1 test car, respectively) over a fairly long time (KOKI70-901 and -902 were built in 1991), JRF must be thinking about this good and hard before committing to anything :).  Video of these things seems to be quite rare :(.

 

Also, here's a Hobidas page with a close-up of the FT12 bogie (KOKI71s had the FT12A), and a cool pic of KUSA1000 which as you can see is a road vehicle carrier.

 

http://rail.hobidas.com/bogie/archives/2009/12/ft12_1000.html

 

The cargo trucks and the discoloration of the photo almost have a late Showa vibe.  I'm starting to see the appeal in freight equipment

Edited January 10, 2016 by miyakoji

[cteno4]

What are those vehicles?!

 

Jeff

[miyakoji]

I think that the configuration with the 3 Hino trucks was a sort of test run, as well as some kind of promotion maybe.  I came across the term 'super piggyback" (スーパーピギーバック) and then googled that, and found a few more images of the same.  Here's a blog entry from summer 2015 showing one's current state :(  http://ameblo.jp/aru-king/theme2-10027882706.html .  There's another image of one intact about 1/3rd the way down this page http://every-dandan.cocolog-nifty.com/nando/2007/08/index.html and near the bottom of this page there's an illustration that you could put in your sig http://www.sea.sannet.ne.jp/isesakikidou/kasya11.html . I think the operator was Nihon Freightliner, a part of JR Freight http://www.f-l.co.jp/about/development.html

[cteno4]

Thanks miyakoji.

 

Looks like a van developed to maybe get the max cross section while on rail. Makes for a truck that looks like a barn on wheels! Doesn't look like it panned out.

 

Jeff

[kvp]

I think it might had something to do with the relatively low clearance of japanese roads and railway overpasses. A tractor trailer on a pocket car would have been better, but somehow i don't see them on japanese street views.

[Das Steinkopf]

I wonder why they have chosen Blue for the livery when JRF has moved to using Dark Grey for the later build Koki106's and all Koki107's.