Train firm courts rail fans with offer to drive diesel locomotive

[gmat]

Train firm courts rail fans with offer to drive diesel locomotive

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201802120007.html

 

How many will be able to drive the loco?

 

Grant

[westfalen]

I could probably drive it but I don't think I could fit in it.

[Kiha66]

I wanna go!  I hope they continue this in the future when I have a chance to visit.  Adding this on my bucket list along with driving an EF63 at Yokokawa.

[westfalen]

I looked at the Yokokawa EF63 before a trip a couple of years ago, my friend and I are both engineers here in Australia, but after looking at the application process (all in Japanese) and the training regime (all in Japanese) I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe if you lived in Japan it would be different.

[Kiha66]

4 minutes ago, westfalen said:

I looked at the Yokokawa EF63 before a trip a couple of years ago, my friend and I are both engineers here in Australia, but after looking at the application process (all in Japanese) and the training regime (all in Japanese) I decided it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe if you lived in Japan it would be different.

 

Perhaps, but I really would like to give it a go so I suppose I should start learning more than just emu and kiha names and actually start trying to learn the language.  Is it just a one day event or is there a whole class you have to take?

[westfalen]

I could be just one day going by the computer translation of their website but it's a bit hard to tell.

 

It seems like they have one day a month with only five places available and reservations open two months in advance with the first five applications accepted, April's spots are already filled by the look of it.

 

They don't mention understanding Japanese as a requisite but I imagine a bit more than a passing knowledge would be required.

[railsquid]

Looks like it's a one day course on the 3rd Saturday of each month, places limited to 5 people. It doesn't say so explicitly but yes I'm sure fairly advanced Japanese knowledge would be required.

Note to self: something to aim for in a couple of years when domestic circumstances allow.

 

Further note to self: pat on the back for accidentally doing the Usui Pass in 1997 shortly before it closed, at the time I had no idea of its significance but was messing about with a Seishun 18 kippu and happened to go that way and wondered why an apparently innocuous local train was so popular. Wish digital cameras had been around at the time...

[westfalen]

10 hours ago, railsquid said:

Further note to self: pat on the back for accidentally doing the Usui Pass in 1997 shortly before it closed, at the time I had no idea of its significance but was messing about with a Seishun 18 kippu and happened to go that way and wondered why an apparently innocuous local train was so popular. Wish digital cameras had been around at the time...

Same here, I did it in 1996 and took plenty of video but also wish I had a digital camera. It was still a while off closing so I was the only railfan around, the Japanese seem to wait until the last day and then line up 16 deep to get photos.