JFE Steel Keihin works' trains - One of Japan's most secretive and possibly only broad-gauge railways

[Socimi]

Like many others on this forum, i also often like to take google earth and go look around a few spots of Japan's railways.

 

In one of these "virtual explorations" i've stumbled across JFE Steel's Keihin Works, located on Ogishima Island in Tokyo Bay (just offshore from Kawasaki).

 

I immediately noticed that the steel plant had it's own railway network, wich is fairly standard, as far as these types of heavy industries go, but two things make it stand out: it's not connected to the rest of the railway network, and upon closer inspection, the tracks appear too wide even for 1435mm gauge - let alone 1067mm!

 

I checked with google earth's meter function, wich gave me a 1.7m reading, meaning that these were certainly broad gauge tracks - probably the only ones in Japan!

 

Extremely intrigued by this setup, i set off to find more about the railway, but unexpecedly, i've found almost no information.

The network is not listed neither in wikipedia's list of Japanese industrial railways nor there is any mention on the Keihin works' page.

 

The few bits of information i could scavange come from a few blogs and twitter posts.

 

Notably, the railway's gauge is the "Indian" 1676mm, and the services are operated with the peculiar-looking class DL-8000 diesel locomotives. Apparently these were made in 1978 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and have a Bo-Bo wheel arrangment. There should be atleast nine units around, but besides this - nothing more is known about them.

 

Altough there are a few videos around:

 

 

 

In these cases, information is hard to come by as for starters, being a steel works access is obiviosly restriced, but not only: the Japanese are very serious about preventing industrial espionage, wich means that tours of the steel works are open only to certain groups (such as shareholders), and photography is forbidden almost evrywhere on the plant's grounds, and in the case of Ogishima island, there isn't even a possible "external" wiewing point as the whole island is property of JFE steel: the only "pubblicly accessible" thing on the island is the Wangan expressway - wich runs on the opposite side of the plant from where the railway is!

 

JFE Steel also has two other "isolated" networks serving it's steel plants: one in Fukuyama and one in Kurashiki.

 

Sources:

 

Twitter posts 1 and 2

 

Blog report on a shareholders' guided tour

 

[nah00]

I kept trying to figure out what the car behind the locomotive was besides a spacer car and then I realized it's a clearance car as well. Pretty clever. Strange that they haven't switched over to wheeled Kress carriers yet, generally they require less maintenance and aren't restricted to tracks. Of course if ain't broke don't fix it. Time to try the good ole magic request: Microace totally shouldn't make a model of these.

 

Also got linked to some other videos from these, looks like dual gauge track but has since been removed (according to the comments), I like how Japanese have an  actual proper crossing for a train while here in the US there's just a 'Watch out for remote controlled locomotives' sign:

 

If you want to skip the hostess, got to the 3:00 mark, interesting to see standard gauge torpedo cars on narrow gauge track, Sumitomo Metal in Kashima:

 

 

Finally no collection of steelmaking videos is complete with an electric arc furnace in action, surprised they have to travel so far from scrap loading to the furnace:

 

Now I want a steel mill on my layout even more...

Edited October 26, 2020 by nah00

[cteno4]

It’s going to take another bedroom to add it! 😜

 

jeff

[Nick_Burman]

On 10/26/2020 at 4:05 AM, nah00 said:

Strange that they haven't switched over to wheeled Kress carriers yet, generally they require less maintenance and aren't restricted to tracks.

 

I'll hazard three guesses for the reason: a) mill confines too tight for the carriers, b) volumes exceed the capacity of tired vehicles and c) carriers need to be imported from the US, contrary to locomotives and torpedo cars/slag pots which can be made locally.

 

Cheers NB

Edited October 28, 2020 by Nick_Burman

[nah00]

I'd say it's likely #1 and a bit of #2. Komatsu, Hitachi or Mitsubishi could likely make a similar product but I doubt they could make dent in the global market to justify it and it's much less expensive to make torpedo cars and slag pots that have stayed the same for almost a century. The charging ladle for the electric furnace does look to be outside of the capacity for one of them and also there's the consideration that if you have the railroad infrastructure in place and spent money on it why not use it.

 

It does give us some neat looking locomotives and cars though so I do like steel mill railroading, I just wish you didn't get treated like a criminal if you try to watch the operations even here in the US. My grandpa worked for US Steel from before WWII until they closed the shop he worked in, they used to have family tours of the mill (no cameras of course) but you still got to see pretty much the whole process. 

[Nick_Burman]

On 10/29/2020 at 4:16 PM, nah00 said:

It does give us some neat looking locomotives and cars though so I do like steel mill railroading, I just wish you didn't get treated like a criminal if you try to watch the operations even here in the US. My grandpa worked for US Steel from before WWII until they closed the shop he worked in, they used to have family tours of the mill (no cameras of course) but you still got to see pretty much the whole process. 

 

I couldn't agree more. In these days of free satellite imagery treating a steel mill as a "secret" is rather like being in a room together with an elephant and yelling to everyone else that the elephant is not there... years ago I was in Brazil with a retired US Steel employee, I asked him if he could ID the parts of a steel mill just by looking at it. "Sure" - and he proceeded to do so just by looking at the roofs of the various buildings. Secret indeed!

 

One US mill which made no fuss was Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling, Ill.. They were one of the last steam ops in the USA (using ex-GTW 0-8-0s), so mill management left cameras in peace - provided you stayed in public areas.

 

Tata Steel in the UK recently had a master stroke - together with a local preservation society (the Appleby - Frodingham Railway Preservation society, https://www.afrps.co.uk/) they offer rail tours of the Scunthorpe mill, usually using one of the society's preserved industrial steam locos. If you ever find your way to the UK try and time your visit to coincide with one of their running days.

 

Back to Japan - Nippon Tube in Amagasaki has a 762mm gauge railway which can be photo'ed from the public highway.

 

 

Cheers NB

 

 

[Nick_Burman]

A rather long video showing operations at Nisshin Steel's Kure Works:

 

 

 

Cheers Nicholas