Virtual 4K Yamanote Line Ride (Inner Circle) in Tokyo

[Spydarman]

Hello everyone!

I'm a Canadian living in Tokyo, Japan for the past 10 years.
Before coming to live in Tokyo, I only road on a handful of trains in my life, and most of my exposure to them would have been from the Thomas the Tank Engine children's show.

Living in Japan, I've enjoyed the life of not having to drive (insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I also love to drive, but I feel less burdened by being able to take a train.

I hope I can share some train stories from Japan in this forum! If you have any questions about Tokyo, Japan, or trains here, please let me know! Also it would be great to chat with anyone out there who lives or who has lived in Japan!

Also, I'm not sure how videos work here, but I've recorded a recent train video riding on the Yamanote line (central loop line) in downtown Tokyo. I'd like to share that here with everyone, so you can see the unbelievable love for trains here. You can see several trains in the video including a glimpse of the Japanese Bullet Train (Shinkansen).

Something about riding trains here is that it can be quite relaxing, and oftentimes, I've found myself falling asleep to miss my intended stop.

If you feel the same while watching this video, please let me know!

Audio Odyssey

https://youtu.be/jKUBYGwoW3A

Please take a look and share if you think it's worthy!
Also, please subscribe, if you would like me to take more train films from Japan.


Arrigatou gozaimasu!

[railsquid]

4 hours ago, Spydarman said:

I'm a Canadian living in Tokyo, Japan for the past 10 years.
Before coming to live in Tokyo, I only road on a handful of trains in my life

 

Heh, I was in Ottawa once and had a free day and wanted to go to Montreal, and assumed, looking at the map, that it would be a train ride of a couple of hours... Checked the timetable and I forget the details but it turned out to be utterly impractical. So got the Greyhound instead.

[Spydarman]

7 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

Heh, I was in Ottawa once and had a free day and wanted to go to Montreal, and assumed, looking at the map, that it would be a train ride of a couple of hours... Checked the timetable and I forget the details but it turned out to be utterly impractical. So got the Greyhound instead.

 

I can honestly say I've never ridden a train in Canada, which is unfortunate, but just goes to show the infrastructure in North America is more geared towards automobiles instead of trains.

[bill937ca]

I think you could do it easier before the pandemic. I remember some trains running Montreal -Ottawa-Toronto. I might check out Via Rail next year when the new Siemens trains enter passenger service.

[cteno4]

The Toronto - Ottawa was pretty reasonable train ride when we did it a decade back (and saw bill in Toronto for sushi and day of streetcar riding!). Time was reasonable from memory to go up to Ottawa for a few days. It may not have been timed to do an up and back in a day, but we were not doing that. From what I remember it was about the same time as driving.

 

Love the museum of humankind, awesome museum. Always impressed with Canadian museums, they take their museums seriously!

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Checking the current timetable, the first train from Ottawa to Montreal is 06:30, and the next one isn't until 10:15. IIRC it was similar when I was travelling (in 2013), and the first train was way too early for me, and with the second, half the day's gone by the time you arrive. Not the kind of turn-up-and-go frequency I was expecting to find between two major cities, but then I'm spoiled from Japan :D.

 

Montreal does have a nice metro system though, which I was planning to explore a bit but then I found you can rent bicycles easily so ended up cycling around.

Edited November 9, 2021 by railsquid

[JR 500系]

I'm loving the quality of the video and the presentation, LIKED and Subscribled ~

 

Makes me wonder how did you capture that video? using a tripod? I'm not sure if large tripods are allowed on trains... some videos i watched are rather shaky, presumely from the person carrying it, but yours is really stable!

 

I also did not observe any crew changes, does one driver operate the entire loop now? Or has this always been the practice? 

Edited November 10, 2021 by JR 500系

[railsquid]

51 minutes ago, JR 500系 said:

I also did not observe any crew changes, does one driver operate the entire loop now? Or has this always been the practice? 

 

It's only about 60 minutes per loop, pretty sure a driver can manage a couple without needing a break. AFAIK crew changes, when they happen, are at Osaki and Ikebukuro.

 

 

 

[disturbman]

Interesting to see that small binaural microphones are becoming products for the greater public. I was not expecting it to happen. I have a pair from before, when it was only used by select sound practitioners.

Maybe it's time to re-invest. Do you know if Sennheiser makes non IOS versions?
 

1 hour ago, JR 500系 said:

Makes me wonder how did you capture that video? using a tripod? I'm not sure if large tripods are allowed on trains... some videos i watched are rather shaky, presumely from the person carrying it, but yours is really stable!

Given in the video description, he is using a handheld stabilizer.

Edited November 10, 2021 by disturbman

[Spydarman]

16 hours ago, JR 500系 said:

I'm loving the quality of the video and the presentation, LIKED and Subscribled ~

 

Makes me wonder how did you capture that video? using a tripod? I'm not sure if large tripods are allowed on trains... some videos i watched are rather shaky, presumely from the person carrying it, but yours is really stable!

 

Thanks for checking out the video! I hope to make some more train videos in the near future. There are so many train lines here, that it would be train lovers' paradise!

 

In capturing the video, I didn't have a tripod at all. All I did was hold my iPhone 11 up to the cabin window and I pressed it against the glass with my hands for the entire time.

To tell you the truth, I did a shoulder workout in the morning. I was feeling shoulder pain and cramping after just 5 minutes, so I had a dose of instant regret and thought "what am I getting myself into?". Deep breathing and soul searching helped me to make it around the entire loop. 🤣

 

I'm thinking of doing another video in the future, but riding on the reversed outer circle track of the Yamanote Line.

[Spydarman]

15 hours ago, railsquid said:

 

It's only about 60 minutes per loop, pretty sure a driver can manage a couple without needing a break. AFAIK crew changes, when they happen, are at Osaki and Ikebukuro.

 

 

 

Yes, I concur with railsquid. You should be able to see the driver change at Osaki station in the video.

 

You could see the next driver waiting on the platform here as the train arrives at Osaki:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKUBYGwoW3A&t=3290s

 

 

Fun fact: I actually used to live in the Osaki area for a couple years, as my workplace was in the area,  and I would always see the Yamanote Line drivers switch there all the time.

[Spydarman]

15 hours ago, disturbman said:

Interesting to see that small binaural microphones are becoming products for the greater public. I was not expecting it to happen. I have a pair from before, when it was only used by select sound practitioners.

Maybe it's time to re-invest. Do you know if Sennheiser makes non IOS versions?
 

Given in the video description, he is using a handheld stabilizer.

 

I did a lot of research in the summer to buy a suitable set of binaural microphones and unfortunately, to my knowledge I don't believe Sennheiser makes non-iOS versions.

 

However, here is a company called Hooke Audio, that makes something similar:

https://hookeaudio.com/#

 

As for the handheld stabilizer, I forgot to remove that from the video description. I was actually just holding my phone against the cabin window the entire time with my hands. It wasn't fun.😆

 

[disturbman]

Hahaha

Sorry, to hear that. But well done, I'm not stable as you are.

 

9 hours ago, Spydarman said:

However, here is a company called Hooke Audio, that makes something similar:

https://hookeaudio.com/#

Thanks for that, I'll check it out. The pair I have requires to use an amplifier and the battery is ridiculously uncommon. It would be nice to get something less unpractical.

The Sennheisers sound great, I checked your Shibuya walk, but the IOS plug limits attractivity. I have a Iphone but I would rather use my audio recorder.

[Spydarman]

On 11/11/2021 at 11:20 PM, disturbman said:

Hahaha

Sorry, to hear that. But well done, I'm not stable as you are.

 

Thanks for that, I'll check it out. The pair I have requires to use an amplifier and the battery is ridiculously uncommon. It would be nice to get something less unpractical.

The Sennheisers sound great, I checked your Shibuya walk, but the IOS plug limits attractivity. I have a Iphone but I would rather use my audio recorder.

 

I looked into a separate audio recorder as well, but due to the price, for me, I felt like I couldn't purchase one at this time.

Also, I was attracted to the idea of having my entire set-up built around my iPhone, including the DJI OM4 gimbal, however I do realize the limitations to it

 

I'm sure you would be able to capture amazing audio quality with the set up that you eventually choose! 😀

 

If you're able to share your results in the future, please share! I'd love to check out what you make!