JR East March 2020 Timetable Revision

[RossDensha]

There's a fair bit happening on the weekend on JR East! 

It begins this Friday (JST) but most of the changes come into effect on Saturday 14th.

Some of it is not that exciting, but I put it in anyway.

 

1. Shinkansen

 

Tohoku: There are some minor time changes, with an extra Hayabusa down service. There are also some services that didn't travel the full route that now will.

Joetsu: There will be some extra Tanigawa services in rush hours for commuters from Takasaki into Ueno and vice versa.

 

2. Zairaisen

 

Safir Odoriko enters service: On Friday, the Superview Odoriko will have its final run.

The Safir Odoriko will enter service on Saturday. There are various service changes, the Saphir Ododriko, can't really be seen as a replacement to the Superview Odoriko, for example the Safir Odoriko won't run from Ikebukuro like the superview does. Several E257-2000s will replace 185s on the regular Odoriko runs.

 

Chuo line: The Chuo-Sobu line will be fitted with home platform doors, and the timetable is being changed on both the rapid and local services of the Chuo line to accomodate this.

 

Fuji Excursion: There will be an extra Fuji Excursion train.

 

Narita Express: There will be more Narita Express trains. All trains between Narita Airport and Tokyo will be 12 cars. There'll also be extra trains to Shinjuku.

 

Takanawa Gateway station will open; but you knew that already. If you didn't know that, it's a new station on the Yamanote line, that has transfers to Sengakuji on the Toei Asakusa line. The name is very unpopular, both in the public (it had one of the lowest number of votes) and on JNS, the latter due to its heavy katakana.

 

More trains on the Sendai Airport Line. Extra 4 car trains rather than 2.

 

Green cars will be introduced on the Ban'etsu west line. Apparently 14 reserved seats per train.

 

J-Village station on the Joban line in Fukushima was opened as a temporary station, but now it's going to become permanent. Also, Sanuki station will be renamed Ryugasaki-shi.

 

The Joban line will resume full line operation! 😃 This means trains will run from Tokyo all the way through to Sendai. Some sections were closed in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown.

 

And finally: The Kashima Line (in Chiba) will allow Suica usage.

 

Source: JR East Press Release

Edited March 16, 2020 by RossDensha
I can read, but I can't translate.

[railsquid]

4 hours ago, RossDensha said:

Chuo line: The Chuo-Sobu line will be fitted with home doors, and the timetable is being changed on both the rapid and local services of the Chuo line to accomodate this.

 

 

It's "platform doors", "home" is an incorrect rendering of ホーム which is short for プラットホーム (platform) in the earlier way of rendering foreign words in Katakana.

 

The timetable change will bring (almost) complete separation of Chuo Line and Chuo-Sobu Line services, which will be necessary once the 12-car Chuo Line trains start running anyway. While quite a few stations Chuo-Sobu Line stations have ongoing construction work for platform doors, I haven't yet seen any in place (haven't been east of Asakusabashi recently though); I presume their appearance will be after the removal of remaining 231-0 series sets with 6 door cars (not sure when that will be, haven't checked).

[stevenh]

19 hours ago, RossDensha said:

home platform

 

Hehe.

[RossDensha]

Missed this: According to Japan Railfan Magazine, after the schedule revision, the temporary Marine Express Odoriko will no longer run.

https://railf.jp/news/2020/03/09/171239.html

The end of a strange service...

[Shinkansenrailfan]

Something that wasn’t mentioned here would be the withdrawal of Niigata Branch KiHa 40s (some if not most or all). As far as I know, Tadami Line’s KiHa 40s will be withdrawn. 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Shinkansenrailfan