Small goods, industrial, shunting yard.

[Kanpai Keith]

Hi Guys,

 

Please excuse my ignorance here but did/do Japanese railways have small goods/shunting yards or industrial works or even docks or canal?  I’m roughing out some ideas and want to include some freight operations to an urban railway.  In the U.K. they are common but I’m looking for ideas for Japanese layout.

 

Thank you.

[railsquid]

Plenty, though the emphasis is more on "did", these days most freight is block container / tanker trains (though there are some small-ish container and oil yards, see e.g. here).

 

A good example of something small and urban and historical is the goods yard near Iidabashi station in Tokyo, here towards the end of its existence in 1997:

 

 

The further back you go, the more stations with freight operations you find.

 

Hachioji (in the far west of Tokyo) ca. 1993:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhSAObLQ0tk

 

A trip working at Higashi Koganei station on the Chuo Line, 1978 or 1979: https://so4338new.blogspot.com/2019/04/blog-post_79.html

 

[bill937ca]

Other threads

 

Shunting at Ryuo Station (Video with Yard Diagram)

 

 

[marknewton]

If you run this blog through a translator you'll find lots of track diagrams for yards of every size, as well as photos.

 

http://senrohaisenzu.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Nick_Burman]

Okawa on the Tsurumi Line looks just like what he was looking for...

 

Cheers NB

[sirenwerks]

Thank you, everyone, for the references. This is all extremely helpful and interesting, and will come in handy. I managed to pick up on a couple other videos on YouTube too and was surprised to see the load out of chemicals into container units while the containers remained on the flat car. Definitely different practices than what I see here in the States.

 

The containerization of freight makes complete sense to me, though I feel a slight sense of surprise that autos, grains, aggregates, and steel don't travel by rail. I need to wrap my head around Japanese consumerism as opposed to what occurs in the US. I haven't found the logic in my mind yet for moving autos (considering their export volume) and for larger/heavier product, like steel, which is not manufactured everywhere.

 

I guess I am just so used to seeing coil cars moving to auto plants; auto parts moving to assembly plants; and finished autos moving to distribution points. And I am still learning that the Japanese don't use US-common products, like clothes driers; that their autos are, frequently, much smaller; and that one of the country's biggest food commodities, rice, is grown everywhere, not in specialized zones and that much less processing of food stuffs occurs than in the US.

 

It's all fascinating, and eye opening.

[cteno4]

Big difference between japan and the US is Japan is an island a bit smaller than California. This means it’s very easy and cheap to ship build around the country by sea vs land. many of the cities in Japan with large manufacturing are near a port. In the US that’s not as true
 

Shipping between US coasts in the US means potentially long transport to a port and then going thru the Panama Canal. Some areas in the US do do huge bulk internal waterway shipping like the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, Great Lakes, and up and down the east coast inland waterway, but it’s very focused to what’s easy to get on the waterways. If you don’t live near one of these you don’t see it as much as big cargo rail in the US.

 

Japan does use pretty much the same stuff the US does, it’s not that that is pushing a lot of coastal cargo vs rail. Bulk import items don’t usually have to go far from port entry.
 

The Island nation is also a big reason rail in japan is so focused on people as smaller distances to cover compared to the US where it’s just too far for rail to be fast enough on long long distances compared to air.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[marknewton]

7 hours ago, sirenwerks said:

 

The containerization of freight makes complete sense to me, though I feel a slight sense of surprise that autos, grains, aggregates, and steel don't travel by rail.

Cars and grain used to be hauled by rail, at least up until the end of carload freight. Aggregates and cement are still hauled by JRF, Chichibu Railway and Sangi Railway.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.