Odakyu announces scrapping of preserved stock

[ToniBabelony]

Odakyu has announced to scrap remaining and preserved rolling stock: https://twitter.com/kontetu1/status/881819771859116032

 

This concerns the a 3-car set of HiSE (10000 Series) cars, a RSE end car 20301 (20000 Series), a 6-car NSE set (3100 Series), and two 2200 Series cars.

 

Naturally, this has unleashed a storm of outrage on social media. However, all of these trains aren't considered real milestones of company history, so it was already kind of special to see at least see the effort of having them preserved in the first place. Yes, however beautiful the NSE is, its legacy is overshadowed by its predecessor: the SE/SSE (of which a 5-car set is actually preserved at Ebina depot).

 

There are also other preserved cars which DID have a significant impact on Odakyu as a company, such as the 9000 Series, MoHa 10 and a 2600 Series car. As for the HiSE: you can still see them in action on Nagaden, as well as the RSE on Fujikyū. An NSE head can also still be seen in this park as well: https://www.town.kaisei.kanagawa.jp/forms/info/info.aspx?info_id=7455 The 2200 Series doesn't get much love though, which is a little understandable, as these weren't very popular with the public anyway.

[kvp]

It's a surprise to me that they don't think about actually selling the sets as is for preservation like in case of the MoHa2 from the Hakone Tozan line. If there is no buyer right now, dumping them on a less used lot is also an option until someone comes along. Preserved cars don't really have any accounting value, so destroying them is only symbolic in a way that the company leadership wants to earase its own history. I think at least the 2 more or less complete sets (3+5 cars) should have been kept as storing 8 cars somewhere has no real costs. Finding non company volunteers for visual upkeep (cleaning and repainting) should have been easy.

[Suica]

Wait what? There's a 6-car NSE set? I thought there was only a single preserved leading car.

[railsquid]

It's a surprise to me that they don't think about actually selling the sets as is for preservation like in case of the MoHa2 from the Hakone Tozan line. If there is no buyer right now, dumping them on a less used lot is also an option until someone comes along. Preserved cars don't really have any accounting value, so destroying them is only symbolic in a way that the company leadership wants to earase its own history. I think at least the 2 more or less complete sets (3+5 cars) should have been kept as storing 8 cars somewhere has no real costs.

 

That assumes you have unused sidings available.

 

Finding non company volunteers for visual upkeep (cleaning and repainting) should have been easy.

 

 

Are you sure about that?

[kvp]

Wait what? There's a 6-car NSE set? I thought there was only a single preserved leading car.

Yes, in the past Odayu had a nice preserved stock with short versions of its historic romancecar line:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Odakyu_RomanceCar_Old_Coloring.JPG

 

They might be keeping the oldest (3000 SSE) set, but the well known romancecar look is from the 3100 (NSE) and 7000 (LSE) sets.

 

 

 

Are you sure about that?

Yes, railfans seem to be common in Japan and all you need is a few railfans who keep cleaning and repainting the old sets once in a blue moon or before open day events. Also 8 cars means one unused siding is required anywhere on the network. It could be some rusty rails laid on the ground anywhere and the cars shunted there with a temporary flying turnout. Add some grass, a few benches and signs and you have an open air railway museum.

Edited July 4, 2017 by kvp

[Suica]

but the well known romancecar look is from the 3100 (NSE) and 7000 (LSE) sets.

I agree. And I think that's why it would be worth keeping. But that's just me. Not like our Deutsche Bahn is any better though.

[Densha]

Set up an Odakyu Museum > put the preserved trains inside > profit??

[ToniBabelony]

The NSE might look nice, but it isn't considered a benchmark in the development of the Romance Car in general. Although it might be nice to have these cars preserved, storing and maintaining them will cost the company money. With continuous development going on regarding quadruple tracking, station rebuilds and investment in new rolling stock, preserving old stuff isn't on the mind of the management. Also, considering the extreme high value of the land around the ROW of Odakyu, having even one track constantly occupied with rolling stock of minor significance will be considered a loss. And no, these trains won't attract a crowd for a museum. Finding railfans who want to preserve them might be easy, but are those fans willing to shell out rent for the land and maintenance? Most static preserved rolling stock in Japan are either on private property (from people or organisations with a dedicated budget) or in municipal parks with an active maintaining fanbase (which is a not the choice of the former company, but of the municipality). There are ALWAYS costs. From a company's point of view, where there are costs, there is a loss. It has nothing to do with maintaining history or whatever, as for these companies, lingering in the past hinders progress.

[kvp]

Ok, but finding a public park for them to dump on with fans keeping them up would cost nothing. Just give them away like in case of the hakone tozan moha2. Someone would probably pick them up. Also the same backlot rails where they were rusting until now could probably also hold them for a bit longer. Not preserving the past usually means being shameful of it or being ignorant about it. Imho both are bad. In all cases where old trains were left to rust and then rebuilt as preserved stock many years later, we could be thankful for those who did not cut them up in the first place. I feel this is a general problem in Japan, the lack of respect for old things then realizing too late what has been lost.

[ToniBabelony]

There is time for people to react to the presevation of at least the RSE, NSE and 2200 for now. If there is a personal demand to preserve them, now is the time to write an angry letter to Odakyū to out your dismay and 'pick up' a full size train car 'for free'.

 

As for a profit based company, taking the cars apart and selling bits and pieces for profit to individual collectors however also is an attractive alternative. If you consider this a cultural problem, you're completely wrong, as this is a company decision. There are plenty of companies that have set up preservation projects and/or museums to boast about their history and legacy. The lack of knowledge thereof is no excuse to set put this off as a cultural problem.

 

Speaking from observations from some preservers I know, taking time to restore a train requires a place to work and thus knowing someone with big private property (which is rare), having time (which is sparse), and the willingness to spend money on something that will generate no revenue and can't be enjoyed by the supporters unless they visit the place of the object. IIRC the only objects that have such dedication are steam locomotives in public parks.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Kabutoni

[Densha]

So is Tobu (and Tokyu, the JRs, etc.) making a loss on their museum or what? There obviously will be costs to setting up a museum, but if you attract enough visitors it will turn into yet another source of revenue. Or is it?

[ToniBabelony]

So is Tobu (and Tokyu, the JRs, etc.) making a loss on their museum or what? There obviously will be costs to setting up a museum, but if you attract enough visitors it will turn into yet another source of revenue. Or is it?

 

If the museum turns a profit, it will be worth the investment. All companies have different policies for negating losses with profit. For example, Tokyū has enormous amounts of real-estate to negate losses made by their railway related operations, which again are the backbone of their non-railway related operations. Odakyu apparently doesn't have this policy and has invested heavily (and still is investing) in quadrupling tracks (including buying expensive private land in one of the most expensive residential areas in Japan, if not the world) and modernisations, so all railway related operations have to at least negate part of these investments. So far, Odakyū doesn't consider opening a museum profitable, as there have been talks like these for years, if not decades, during (private) stock owner meetings.

[cteno4]

Toni is spot on, at the rate Japanese train companies build trains they could not hope to afford to preserve a fraction of the models made. Dropping a train ina public park is not a solution as it will just rot there unless properly preserved and protected. Japan has a large tradition of preservation and train museums. Space like this in areas were a lot of folks could easily enjoy them is not cheap in japan and trains take up a lot of room. Japan has a long history of rail preservation and rail museums.

 

You are way off the mark calling them shameful or ignorant. As toni said they are a business and must turn a profit and building museums and restoring cars certainly does not turn a profit for them at all. I am sure if there were private individuals or institutions that were interested they could be acquired cheap or free, but there just is not space at train museums or the funding to do a huge variety of trains.

 

The museum industry is a really tough one, for any of size and quality they rarely pay for themselves for running expenses and certainly not for the capital projects, those are mostly donation campaigns and grants. unless the entrance prices are extremely high, but that only works if extremely popular. Not many companies can afford to build and subsidize museums.

 

Jeff

[JR 500系]

It's saddening news to hear the RSE being scrapped... It was one of the very special romance cars then with their double decker carriages....

[kvp]

Toni is spot on, at the rate Japanese train companies build trains they could not hope to afford to preserve a fraction of the models made. Dropping a train ina public park is not a solution as it will just rot there unless properly preserved and protected. Japan has a large tradition of preservation and train museums. Space like this in areas were a lot of folks could easily enjoy them is not cheap in japan and trains take up a lot of room. Japan has a long history of rail preservation and rail museums.

I think that ignoring most of your past for business reasons is not a nice thing to do. Also most japanese museums so far have only a few head cars and there are examples when even jr companies have scrapped already protected rolling stock when they were reorganising their exhibits. Imho this is bad and the result is that there is no remaining complete series 0 set, not even in a shortened form. I would prefer these old trains rusting plinted on an abandoned siding in the middle of nowhere for a hundred years than cutting them up now. I've seen quite a lot of cars that were left to rot for nearly a hundred years and then brought back to life in running condition. Turns out it could be done as long as you don't cut them up and pack them away properly before forgetting about them. If nobody claims the cars until they turn to rust, then they will be gone. If anyone wants to maintain them in the future, they could at least try.

 

I do understand that you can't keep every car type ever made. However keeping 8 cars from 2 iconic series might worth a try. Keeping the two oldest ones, the SSE and the NSE might sill be worth it. One for the record, one for the iconic look. Unless they want to erase them from company history or try to refocus the company on a no history only current profits standpoint. That might be an understandable reason but loosing the support of people on the long term might be a bad thing. I understand that railfans are unimportant for Odakyu but making a bunch of enemies when tourists are an important source of income might be a bad decision.

 

On the other hand, getting new sets with the same overall look might indicate that they do want the tourists. Just apparently not the railfan ones.

[ToniBabelony]

What you fail to see is that Odakyū tried and it didn't work out eventually. JR companies can preserve relatively a lot of rolling stock because they have the resources and space because of their JNR heritage. Private companies don't have this luxury, so they have to consider these decisions above anything else.

 

Just because a few external individuals would like to see a few relatively insignificant cars (these are not iconic trains in regard to the overall history of Odakyū) preserved without providing any financial input for a profit base company, doesn't mean this company will keep a few on the side. Also, that 'on the side' is using space and using space is having operating costs. There are no abandoned sidings, as a profit based company considers all their property useful. If railfans are really that concerned about preserving rolling stock, they should take action themselves, as preserving is not the priority of the company. A full train car occupies the space of one or two residential buildings, which would probably turn up much more in terms of profit than a museum would.

 

Also, only the 6-car set will be scrapped (or sold or whatever to get it off valuable Odakyū owned property) and an already preserved head car will remain in the semi-public park anyway. Two HiSE sets are still in operation, an RSE set is still in operation as well, so when the time comes to preserve these and Odakyu wants to have these back for a museum, they can simply buy them back. This would probably be less expensive then having a few ghosts standing around, requiring maintenance, occupying space, and making losses. Even though they'd put these trains in 'the middle of nowhere', this land is owned by someone, requires rent and transport, and thus is a loss.

 

Odakyū also doesn't ignore its past, as do many companies here. Every company has at least a historical archive, as data and photographs take up less space and maintenance than full sized train cars. Odakyu isn't a charity, it's a business. If Odakyū would have wanted to open a museum, they'd have done so already.

 

As for pleasing the railfans, the sales of merchandising seem to go well.

Edited July 5, 2017 by Kabutoni

[cteno4]

sure you would prefer they not act as a business, but where will the money come from? what you are asking costs a lot of money. train storage, restoration, and or display is not a money making venture ususally. Even the storage costs can be high as japan is not a dry climate that lends itself to good boneyards.

 

businesses have to be run as businesses or they are out of business.

 

I would love to see as many trains as possible saved and potentially restored, but ive been around the museum world for a long time and it costs a lot of money and as the artifacts get bigger it just gets way more expensive. Preservation of many japanese trains are even more expensive and hard to do because they are unit trains. scrap value is higher these days and also a lot of value in souvenir pieces as well. Businesses put this into their ROI calculations these days. 

 

Only so much can be done, but they are not being ignorant or shameful and they are not erasing history.

 

ejff

[railsquid]

Hmm, didn't realised Odakyu doesn't have any kind of (real-world) museum, pity as I'm planning to take the Squidlet around all these places.

 

The museum industry is a really tough one, for any of size and quality they rarely pay for themselves for running expenses and certainly not for the capital projects, those are mostly donation campaigns and grants. unless the entrance prices are extremely high, but that only works if extremely popular. Not many companies can afford to build and subsidize museums.

 

The Keio museum seems to work well because it's cunningly located next to the Tama Zoo (presumably on land which is hard to use for other purposes, it's up in the hills a bit), guaranteeing a constant stream of visitors as it's a nice place to pop into after a visit to the zoo, especially if you have kids. They even seem to be expanding it a little. However it only has space for about half-a-dozen cars from various trains, all under a a protective roof.

[bikkuri bahn]

Too bad about the 2200 series, even though these regular commuter stock are not fan favorites among the general public and casual railfans, they are historically significant, as they were the first cardan shaft drive commuter units put in service by Odakyu.  They are an example of the rapid development of railway technology and experimentation especially among the private railway companies that occured in the 1950's, with the move away from axle hung traction motors and pre-war style riveted carbodies. Perhaps one can hold the (very) slim hope that Nippon Sharyo or Kawasaki Heavy will acquire one or two as they built them.

Edited July 5, 2017 by bikkuri bahn

[Suica]

Odakyu has announced to scrap remaining and preserved rolling stock: https://twitter.com/kontetu1/status/881819771859116032

Apparently It seems like there was some misinformation published there and they don't plan to scrap THAT many cars.

http://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/articles/1707/07/news027.html

Could someone of our Japanese speakers extract the details from here? Google Translate doesn't like this article. :P

[kvp]

 

　The Kitami Vehicle Base is close to the city center and it is important as an operation base for express trains. Since vehicles will be net increase, we want to reduce the place to place cars to be stored. Therefore, we reviewed the number of stored vehicles as a company. The details are as follows.

• Moha No. 1 No. 10 was preserved in Kitami (the train used at the time of the opening of the Odawara express train, made in 1927)
• The Romance Car 10000 type HiSE saves only the first car and disassembles the first car and the intermediate car one by one (It features a high-tech car and a sharp leading head car, made in 1987)
• Romance car 20000 type RSE saves 1 car and 1 intermediate car, the first car is disassembled (intermediate car is two stories, used for 'Asagiri' get on JR Tokai.) Made in 1991
• Romance car NSE 3100 saves a total of 3 cars including 2 top cars and 1 intermediate car, disassembling 3 intermediate cars (Odakyu's first front car front view seat adopted, made in 1963)
• Commuter type 2200 saves 1 car at the top, disassembling 1 car (2 front windows of the front car, built the foundation of high-performance commuter train at Odakyu, made in 1954)
• Commuter type Model 2600 saves 1 car at the top, maintains the current state (the first 20 meter class large car, a preserved car of "Odakyu face", made in 1967)
• The commuter type 9000 form preserves the first car and maintains the present condition (the first subway ride correspondence car, the unique front shape affected other companies, made in 1972)
• Romance car 3000 type SE 5 both preserved in Ebina kei store, maintaining the current state (adopting a connecting car body, keeping world fastest speed record of narrow gauge, became the cornerstone of high speed railway in Japan, made in 1957)

[Davo Dentetsu]

Apparently It seems like there was some misinformation published there and they don't plan to scrap THAT many cars.

http://www.itmedia.co.jp/business/articles/1707/07/news027.html

Could someone of our Japanese speakers extract the details from here? Google Translate doesn't like this article. :P

It did translate okay for me.  Article is about 5 pages.  I just skimmed a bit and seemed to say it was only partial fleet dismantling, plus there may have been a museum discussed?  That's what I seem to pick out of it.

[Socimi]

Ohhh, so they are indeed going to spare some of them. That's a nice thing to hear.

[ToniBabelony]

That's interesting to see! There was already a lot of grief online, but this actually changes things. Thanks for finding that article :)

[Suica]

NSE 3100 on the way to the scrapyard.