New Type: JR East EF510-500 "Hokutosei" & "Cassiopeia"

[stevenh]

JRE still also runs the Hokutosei and Akebono. As well as the West running the Nihonkai (although wiki says JRE does?)

[CaptOblivious]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but has anyone read about JR's commitment to night trains?  With the exception of the Sunrise services, the Twilight Express, and the Cassiopeia, I kind of thought they were doing away with them, but JRE has, according the Wikipedia, which knows all, ordered 15 of these -500s.  They don't really need 15 just for the Cassiopeia I don't think.

 

I had thought that Hokutosei was sticking around for the foreseeable future? I had read elsewhere (I know not where) that Hokutosei was still popular with business travelers because you arrived in Sapporo/Tokyo earlier and more refreshed than taking the first shinkansen of the morning.

[bikkuri bahn]

I haven't heard anything about the future of the Hokutosei.  I assume it will stick around, at least until its rolling stock becomes life expired, the market dries up, or the shinkansen finally makes it up here.  One thing to keep in mind about Hokutosei and Cassiopeia (and Twilight Express) is that they are primarily serving the tourist/leisure market, unlike the blue trains that are/were running in Honshu, which served a more varied clientele.  Also, as I mentioned above, no shinkansen yet in Hokkaido, and cheap overnight buses are not a factor in the Tokyo-Sapporo corridor (now that's a nightmare of a trip if it existed...).  Most people fly, of course, and the recent trend is for business people to fly out to Sapporo and come back the same day, thus saving the expense of a hotel room.

[bill937ca]

EF510-501 enters Cassiopeia express service

 

 

[bill937ca]

Another view.

 

[disturbman]

[Guest ___]

 

I actually like that livery. ^_^

[Tosaden]

Does anybody know the distance of the axles in the bogies? Kato offers a motorized bogie in H0 and maybe I can use this bogie for my H0 trams.

[VJM]

Just quickly taking a ruler to mine, it's 31mm.  I don't have a set of digital calipers for anything more accurate.

[Tosaden]

Thanks VJM.