First air-conditioned limited express trainset in Japan?

[Sacto1985]

I have to ask this: who introduced the first air-conditioned limited express trainset in Japan? I think it was the Odakyu 3000 Series SE (小田急3000形) Romancecar trainset in 1957, one year before the JNR 151 Series trainset entered service. Mind you, I'm not sure when did Kintetsu introduce their first air-conditioned limited express trainsets, though.

[Kabutoni]

Nankai 2001 (1936) as the first air conditioned train in Japan and the Meitetsu 5500 (1959) as the first regular (non-surcharge) air conditioned train.

[Sacto1985]

I'm actually a bit surprised that Nankai introduced the first air-conditioned train in Japan--much earlier than I anticipated. But was the Nankai 2001 designed specifically for all-seater limited express service like the Romancecar 3000 SE was....

Edited June 5, 2016 by Sacto1985

[bikkuri bahn]

The first postwar application of airconditioning on a limited express service (or any private railway train for that matter), was the Kintetsu 2250 and 6421 series limited express types, which were retrofitted with Kawasaki Heavy Industries KM-7 aircon units.  They entered service on June 20, 1957.  The Odakyu 3000 SE series with aircon were introduced into revenue service a little later, in October.  There is a snippet of a color video showing one of these Kintetsu units (in their yellow cream and blue livery) in operation somewhere on YT, I'm not sure exactly where.

[bikkuri bahn]

I'm actually a bit surprised that Nankai introduced the first air-conditioned train in Japan--much earlier than I anticipated.

 

Nankai was in competition with the Hanwa Electric Railway for passengers (a competitive situation still prevalent with many Kansai area railways), and so introduced this feature for customer appeal.  The 2001 series also had other new-for-the-times features, such as a 20m body length (now the standard), and introduced 150kW motors on all bogies, making them the most powerful emu units in Japan at the time, at 800hp per car. The airconditioning units were built by the predecessor of Daikin Industries, which are still in business today (in fact, the aircon setup in my apartment is a Daikin unit). 

 

*Apparently the 2001 series were used in both limited express and express services.