Retirement/Replacement of JR East 485 EMU "Irodori"

[984smurf]

I just came across an Instagram post stating that the JR East 485 Series running on "Irodori" services will have their last run on 30th September 2017. 

 

Kind of sad to see some more of the remaining 485 Series trains go. I can still remember the times when I rode some of these trains on Hakucho Services and they were definitely comfortable to ride on (as with most Japanese Express Trains heh)

 

Wondering what replacement will be deployed for the 485 Series EMU

[miyakoji]

I'm not real familiar with JR East's operations in Tohoku, but I think for the regularly scheduled 485s, the services they ran have been cut back in some cases.  The Hakucho was discontinued when the Hokkaido Shikansen opened.  The Hokuto still connects Hakodate to Sapporo, and according to Wikipedia, JR Hokkaido uses KIHA 183, 281, and 283 for that service.  Some services, or sections of services, on the Sea of Japan coast that used 485s were discontinued when the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension opened, so need there was reduced, and remaining services use refurbed E653s where 485s have been scrapped, but I'm not sure they've all been scrapped yet.  JR West phased out their Raicho 485s a while ago, wikipedia says 2011.  I'm not sure what the status of JR Kyushu's 485s is, Japanese Wikipedia says they got 385 cars when JNR was privatized.

[kvp]

On 9/16/2017 at 2:47 AM, miyakoji said:

I'm not sure what the status of JR Kyushu's 485s is, Japanese Wikipedia says they got 385 cars when JNR was privatized.

According to the japanese wikipedia entry, by spring 2017 only 75 cars were remaining at JREast with both 483 and 489 series fully retired everywhere with no original JNR style sets remaining in service. So it looks like, these JRE sets are the last ones.