JR East and JR West Shinkansen Questions

[TestudoToTetsudo]

Any help with these JR East questions would be most appreciated...planning a late 2021 trip hopefully, Covid notwithstanding.

 

1) What is the retirement plan for the E4?  Hyperdia still shows some MAX Toki while Wikipedia says they were to be withdrawn in 2016.

 

2) Are the single level Toki mostly E4, or did I hear correctly that E7 Shinkansen are being deployed to the Joetsu Shinkansen as well?  Any idea what it will be by the end of next year?

 

3) If in the nearest ordinary class car (cars 8 or 12) on the Hayabusa/Komachi, is there enough time to detrain at Morioka and walk up to where the split of the consists is performed to see the split?  (Assuming you are NOT trying to reboard  the same train)?  What about the Yamabiko/Tsubasa at Fukushima?  What about the other direction, can one be on the platform at Morioka/Fukushima, watch the coupling, then have sufficient time to walk to the nearest Ordinary car and board before departure?

 

Edited to add: Also, some JR West Questions:

3) Do we know when the 500 Series on the Kodama and 700 Series on the Hikari Rail Star will be retired?  With the N700S coming online and a glut of N700 around, curious if there will still be 500 or 700 Shinkansen in a year or two (or if it will be on like one round trip per day that's hard to schedule a trip around).
4) Is the Hello Kitty Shinkansen still around and if so what kind of a schedule deployment is it on?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited August 8, 2020 by TestudoToTetsudo

[paolo]

1) Not sure about the latest updates, but because of the Hagibis typhoon that hit Japan last year and the destruction of eight JR East E7 sets, the retirement of the E4 sets has been postponed. So you'll probably still see them running.

 

2) The single level Toki are mostly E2 sets, E4 sets have only two levels. They introduced the E7 sets on this service, but also because of the typhoon, their numbers should be very limited. I believe at least five newly built E7 sets that were planned to run on the Joetsu line will be diverted to the Hokuriku one.

 

3) I was supposed to experience that in June for the first time, damn it. So cannot help you there.

[TestudoToTetsudo]

59 minutes ago, paolo said:

1) Not sure about the latest updates, but because of the Hagibis typhoon that hit Japan last year and the destruction of eight JR East E7 sets, the retirement of the E4 sets has been postponed. So you'll probably still see them running.

 

2) The single level Toki are mostly E2 sets, E4 sets have only two levels. They introduced the E7 sets on this service, but also because of the typhoon, their numbers should be very limited. I believe at least five newly built E7 sets that were planned to run on the Joetsu line will be diverted to the Hokuriku one.

 

3) I was supposed to experience that in June for the first time, damn it. So cannot help you there.

Thanks for the helpful info!

[katoftw]

1/2 - plans were to retire them but 12 E7/W7s got flooded and now the retirement has been put on hold while more E7/W7s get built.

 

3 - heaps of videos on youtube on the process.

[Yavianice]

2 the E4 only runs on services that have MAX in them (tanigawa and toki) afaik. There are dedicated E7 sets for some reason on the Joetsu shinkansen even though they are really needed on the Hokuriku line. I don’t understand why. There are even specially liveried E7 Toki sets that will run for a limited time. These will not run on the Hokuriku line.

 

3 the split is not that interesting since the train just drives off. The merger cannot be seen when coming from Akita or Yamagata. Only from Sendai/Aomori. I’d say there should be enough time to see the merger and still board the train in time as long as you don’t linger around too long. Car 12 is closer than car 8 btw, and you won’t be allowed to board the Granclass car.

 

 

[TestudoToTetsudo]

Thanks for the added information everyone!

Edited August 8, 2020 by TestudoToTetsudo