ED75's Random Japanese Trip Photos

[ED75-775]

Once you've had your fill of people and taking photos, it's time to board the SL Paleo Express. When it started in 1988 the train was initially operated using leased in carriages from JR East's Takasaki-based heritage carriage set, but in 2000 Chitetsu would purchase five 12-series coaches, again from JR East. Four of the five would be overhauled, repainted and renumbered, and placed into service on the Paleo Express while the fifth became a source of spare parts.

 

 

Inside, the four coaches haven't been massively modified from their original configuration or appearance. As noted above, the train was decorated as part of the Honkai Star Rail Earth Tour event - note the advertising banners depicting characters from the game above the luggage racks.

 

 

While I've only ridden a few steam-hauled tourist trains in Japan, several have on-board souvenir stamps, and the Paleo Express isn't any different. Located between cars 1 and 2 according to the Japanese Wikipedia article for the Paleo Express (though I'd say it's more likely in car 1), is a stamp room where you'll find the train's special stamp. There's no paper provided so bring your eki-stamp book with you if you want a copy of this stamp as a souvenir.

 

 

What's that sound? The locomotive whistle is blowing... we must be about to depart!

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

The first part of the journey from Kumagaya isn't particularly noteworthy, although the Chitetsu tracks do run alongside the Takasaki Line until just beyond Kami-Kumagaya Station. From there it's a short amble through the suburbs and two stations, Ishiwara and Hirose-Yachonomori, to reach our first point of interest, Hirosegawara Depot.

 

 

Up until 1969, Chitetsu had its main maintenance depot located at Kumagaya Station, but in 1969 all maintenance services were shifted to a brand-new depot at Hirosegawara Freight Station, between the present-day Ōasō and Hirose-Yachōnomori stations. Quite apart from being home to both the Paleo Express, and one of the railway's two turntables, it's also one of the first places you might see some of the railway's electric locomotives. It also houses a small collection of retired and semi-retired freight stock, mostly old box wagons being used as storage sheds.

 

 

Jumping back from 2024 to 2023, and we have two such locomotives parked in front of the main depot building. Note also the interesting elevated building above the layover tracks; I'm not sure if this is a signal box, an office or some other railway facility, but it looks neat. The locomotives in this shot, for anyone taking numbers, were DeKi 501 and 505.

 

Pointless digression incoming: Hirosegawara Depot has been used in the past as a tokusatsu filming location by Toei for its Super Sentai series. I'm not sure if it's also appeared in the Kamen Rider franchise, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

 

Alastair

Edited March 14 by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

And because I can, here's another shot of that cool elevated building from 2024, taken on the return journey to Kumagaya. Not the best of my shots but the closest I've got for now, so it'll have to do. Parked up in the sidings on this occasion were another 7200 series EMU and DeKi 105, one of three remaining locomotives of this class still in service.

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

The next station up the line is Ōasō, which according to Wikipedia once again (English and Japanese) opened on 7 January 1901. It's a small station with a detached main building and island platform, plus two sidings, one of which looks to have been taken out of use. It was fully staffed until 12 March 2022 when a new PASMO ticket gate was brought into use, at which point it was converted into an unmanned station.

 

 

On my way back from Nagatoro in 2023, my train had to stop to cross a Mitsumineguchi-bound service coming the other way. Now this is where things got interesting - the driver saw me doing so, and beckoned that I could step off the train and take a few photos from the platform!

 

 

And here our friendly driver is, gesturing would I like him to turn the train's headlights back on? I don't know his name, or why he was so kind to me, but I'll forever be grateful to this driver for his kindness.

This particular train, number 5001, is also pretty interesting although I didn't know that until I did a little research while writing this post. It's the first of four 5000 series three-car trains introduced between 1999 and 2000, formed from surplus Toei 6000 series subway cars built in 1972. While set 5004 was withdrawn in 2011 after a level crossing accident, the other three are still running in local train service. For historical completeness, Chitetsu was one of two operators to operate the 6000 series after they were retired from Toei service; the other was the Kumamoto Electric Railway, which had five two-car sets although only one is still in regular use.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Getting back on track at Ōasō, here's the shot that started it all - just a quick grab shot for the memories.

 

 

With the other train shortly to arrive, I scuttled back on board after thanking the train driver for his kindness, but had enough time before we got going to snap the opposing train through the open door. Again, just for the memories.

 

 

Now that I think about it, there's more than a little inspiration here if ever I wanted it. Local stations like this are the best!

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Shortly after passing Aketo Station, another railway line curves in from the right-hand side. This line, the Mikajiri Line, serves as a dedicated link to Chichibu Taiheyo Cement's Kumagaya factory, and means you're only a short time away from arriving at Takekawa Station. While not particularly noteworthy for passenger statistics or architecture, it does have one feature worth seeing (and you will, don't worry!) - it's home to a locomotive shed and typically, several electric locomotives.

 

 

 

While Chitetsu's electric locomotive fleet is officially allocated to Hirosegawara Depot, Takekawa Station has a small locomotive shed which serves as a stabling point between freight runs. On both my trips so far, at least three electric locomotives have been on shed at any one time.

 

 

The Mikajiri Line, for those so interested, serves both the cement factory as noted above, and also used to link into the neighbouring Kumagaya Freight Terminal. The line between Mijakiri Station and Kumagaya Freight Terminal was however closed in 2020 due to aging infrastructure and the loss of its last remaining traffic flows, one of which being Japan's last coal train.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

And another gratuitous locomotive depot photo, this time jumping back from 2024 to 2023 and the return train from Nagatoro to Kumagaya:

 

 

What good is a locomotive without a train? The Chitetsu DeKi fleet owes its continued survival to the limestone trains feeding both the Kumagaya and Bushu-Haraya cement factories. The limestone itself is quarried from the Minowa Mine on the slopes of Mount Bukō, near Kagemori, where we'll end up later. The trains themselves are well known thanks to their iconic wagons, Chitetsu's WoKi and WoKiFu 100 series hoppers. One hundred and forty-three of these thirty-five ton load capacity wagons were built in 1956 and the vast majority are still running today, which is quite the service career!

 

 

 

Typical limestone trains today run with twenty wagons comprising eighteen WoKi hoppers and two WoKiFu hoppers with conductors cabins. The conductors cabins, by the way, are not manned; freight conductors were withdrawn from Chitetsu trains in 1988, but the cabins have endured.

 

Alastair

[kuro68000]

Great photo with the two employees standing there.

[SL58654号]

On 2/9/2025 at 8:41 PM, ED75-775 said:

 

 

Also displayed in this space, there's a semaphore signal - but again, it's a replica! A very good replica, in fact, as I couldn't tell that it was one. According to Japanese Wikipedia it's a distant signal - although it has a square end, which was quite common in England until 1872 when according to Wikipedia, railway companies started to add fishtail notches to their distant signals in order to better define them from other signals.

Being built and operated as a mirror of British practice at the time, it's understandable that Japan's early railways would have adopted the same conventions in railway signalling practice, including later on the switch from red arms and warning lights to yellow arms and warning lights on distant signals.

 

All wonderful stuff. This begs the question in my mind: who supplied Japan's early signals and signal boxes? Some say based on the finials that they were originally made by the Railway Signal Co. of London. No resource I have consulted thus far, not even Dan Free's Early Japanese Railways, has given any details. It would make as much sense to me that earlier signalling equipment was imported, just as locomotives, rolling stock and turntables were, and indeed at least a few staff instruments were supplied for single-line working, so why wouldn't signalling apparatus such as semaphore brackets and signal houses be imported?
Here is the first Osaka Station in the Meiji period. I like the signal box. Very British and proper looking. Could it have been by McKenzie and Holland? 

 

http://blog-imgs-21.fc2.com/a/t/a/atamatote/20080417223951.jpg

 

Here's a drawing of Meiji era signals. Someone told me they might've been by the Railway Signal Co judging by their finials.

  

[ED75-775]

Halfway along our route, the train briefly pauses at Yorii Station. As mentioned earlier, this was the original western terminus of the-then Jobu Railway from 1901 and would remain so until 1903 when it was extended to Hagure. A second station would open adjacent to the Chitetsu station in 1925 to serve the Tōbu Railway's Tōjō Line from Ogawamachi, followed in 1933 by a third station on what was then the Japanese Government Railways Hachikō North Line.

 

 

 

The three stations here are all pretty similar, comprising island platforms each serving two tracks, and one main building managed by the Chichibu Railway on behalf of all three operators. There's not much here for tourists, so unless you've got a reason to be out here, it's probably not worth a day trip. If you're here looking for trains, be prepared to see more Chitetsu services than anything else; the Tōbu Tōjō Line operates as a commuter line out this far so there won't be many trains except during peak hours, while the Hachikō Line runs infrequent DMU services linking Takasaki and Komagawa.

 

There's also track connections between the Chichibu Main Line and each of the other two operators, which typically only see use when trains are sent out for maintenance. In the case of the JR East connection, it's only used once yearly when C58 363 is sent to Ōmiya for maintenance or occasionally when passenger coaches are hired in from Takasaki.

 

 

From Yorii, the tracks start heading into the foothills of the Saitama mountain ranges. We'll start heading that way shortly.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Before we leave Yorii for our next stop, it's worth mentioning that the SL Paleo Express lays over at Yorii on the outbound journey to cross an eastbound local train. If you don't fancy brawling through the crowds at Kumagaya to get a photo of the locomotive, this is the spot to do it. Fair warning: you'll still have to compete somewhat, although there won't be as many people to compete with.

 

 

 

Oh, remember I mentioned those infrequent DMU services on the Hachikō Line? On my way back in 2023 I managed to snap a photo of one! Services over this part of the line are handled by KiHa 110s, which operate as one- to three-car sets depending on passenger demand. Being a mid-day(ish) on a Saturday, KiHa 110-222 on its own was more than enough to handle the light passenger loading bound for Komagawa.

 

 

Disclaimer: later in my 2023 trip in Nagoya, I did look at buying a second-hand KiHa 110 from Hobby Land Pochi because of this encounter. In the end I decided against it as one sighting didn't constitute reason enough to buy one. And of course space being what it was, I can't afford to buy something 'just because'. Now, how many times have we not been able to follow that advice...?

 

Alastair

 

[ED75-775]

Leaving Yorii, the train heads towards the Arakawa River valley and follows it down to Nagatoro. The view on this stretch happens to be on the left side of the train; for those who pick seats on the right, don't worry - you'll get plenty of excellent views further down the line.

 

 

Nagatoro is the next major town along the line, so we'll stop here for a little bit. If you're looking for touristy things to do, this town has a few including river rafting, but we'll stick close to the station for now. We wouldn't want to miss our train onwards!

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

We now arrive at Nagatoro Station, more or less halfway along our route. Opened in September 1911 as Hodosan Station, it received its current name in July 1923. For those getting off the train here, a quick skim of Google Maps suggests there's a little bit more to Nagatoro than just the river rafting activities with a small shopping area to the south of the station, and to the north, the Mineyama Shrine. During my 2023 trip rather than taking a look around this tourist town, I decided to stay at the station and so can't give any recommendations if members want ideas on things to do here.

 

 

This shot taken in 2023 shows the basic layout of Nagatoro Station quite well, with both a side and island platform. The SL Paleo Express arrives and departs from Platform 3, on the right of this shot. Platform 3 is also utilised by some Seibu Railway trains which run through from Seibu-Chichibu Station further east, although I don't have much information on these through services. Note also that I was back in dumb-tourist mode to take this photo, standing on the foot crossing between platforms to take this shot. I don't recommend doing this!

 

 

Flip forward to 2024, and this is the main station building. It dates back to 1911 and has been recognised as being preserved in almost completely original condition by the then-Ministry of Transport in 1997 as one of the 'Best 100 Stations in Kanto'. If you have time - and you might not if you're riding the Paleo Express - take the time to jump across to the ticket office and collect the station's eki-stamp. When the staff there saw me doing that with my stamp book in 2023, they pulled out a few extra eki-stamps they had too for the nearby Oyahana and Kami-Nagatoro stations.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Another quirky little detail at Nagatoro: there's a small Shinto shrine on Platform 1. I'm not sure what its relevance is to the railway, but it must be important if it's on the station platform. One for the inspiration file then!

 

 

And another general view of the station area, looking east. The level crossing in the mid-distance is a great spot if you want to watch the Paleo Express coming or going. We'll see that briefly on the way back to our next destination. But before we think about backtracking, we should carry on towards Mitsumineguchi.

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Nagatoro is another great location to try and get a photo of C58 363 during the course of the Paleo Express' journey. As before, there's still some crowd-fighting to do for the best position, and even more so if you decide as I did in 2023 to film the train departing. This one's a favourite photo of mine, so I hope nobody minds that I'm reposting this.

 

 

And also a favourite photo of mine, this close-up shot of DeKi 507 pulling into Nagatoro with a empty limestone train. It would wait here for a few minutes to cross the eastbound train I then caught back to Kumagaya; hiding behind it is another westbound train which would wait for the freight before continuing its journey. Note that the westbound train is still wrapped for the 2019 Rugby World Cup... four years after it happened. Institutional inertia strikes again!

 

 

While it doesn't look any different to the other DeKi locomotives in the Chitetsu fleet, DeKi 507 is something of an oddball since it's actually not owned by Chitetsu but by Chichibu Taiheyo Cement. Upon entering service in September 1980, it would replace DeKi 101 which was then transferred to Chitetsu outright. And for added nerd points, 507 and sister DeKi 506 are the only electric locomotives to have body-mounted tail lights rather than having them mounted on the ends of the decks.

For those wanting a more comprehensive review of these locomotives, I would recommend buying a copy of RM Library Volume 280, which, apart from the various Chitetsu electric locomotive classes, also covers all the private electric locomotives in eastern Japan to boot. I have yet to buy myself a copy, but I'll be doing so in June.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

On my 2024 trip I took relatively fewer photos beyond Nagatoro, other than one or two points of (very) narrow interest, so there'll be a few big leaps between locations.

 

 

Within two kilometers of Nagatoro Station, the line crosses the Arakawa River on a high girder bridge. From here on out, the river remains on the right-hand side of the train, and thus most of the views. Based on my very limited knowledge and photos online, the Arakawa Bridge is one of the best spots to photograph trains on the Chichibu Main Line - not that I've ever had the thought of hopping of and spending some time here trying it out.

 

 

Also noted in this part of rural Saitama, or maybe in other places where I haven't been paying attention, are these interesting blue roof tiles. I saw a number of roofs like this along the way, including a few in other colours. The blue ones however caught my eye the most. If you wanted a nice point of difference with some of your model buildings, this wouldn't be a bad feature to replicate.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Shortly before the train arrives at Ōnohara Station, it passes Chichibu Taiheyo Cement's second plant. Although we're technically in Ōnohara at this point, Chitetsu refers to the plant's rail yard as Bushu-Haraya Freight Station. The factory itself opened in February 1956, but since 1984 has also served as a secondary loading point for limestone trains as well. What I didn't know until I looked it up was that Chichibu Taiheyo Cement has a second mine in Kanna, Gunma Prefecture, which is linked to the Ōnohara plant by a 23-kilometre long underground conveyor belt.

 

 

Up until the end of coal train services in 2020, Bushu-Haraya was also a destination for these services although Japanese Wikipedia is somewhat ambiguous about how frequently they ran here. Finished cement was also railed out of this site up until March 2006 when it was transferred to road transport. Nowadays it seems that the only trains serving the site are either loaded trains from Kagemori, or empty trains preparing to load for the trip to Takekawa and the Kumagaya factory.

 

 

 

 If the Japanese Wikipedia page is to be believed, there were three diesel shunters based at Bushu-Haraya. During my passage in 2024, there was only the one on site, DD 512 which was parked up during our outbound trip. By the time we returned homebound for Kumagaya it had been fired up and was preparing to shift another limestone train into the unloading shed. Based on what I saw here, it would appear that the electric locomotives remain attached to their trains during the unloading process.

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

ED75's 'Prototype for Everything' Diversion - Freight cars as scenery

Heading past the southwest end of the Ōnohara cement factory, the factory's small locomotive shed complex caught my eye, as did this odd-looking white box wagon parked alongside. Said wagon actually shows up as a building on my Apple Maps app so it's clearly not been used in a long time.

 

 

A little bit of applied Google-fu reveals it's a TeKi 200 bagged cement box wagon. Under magnification the number 216 or 218 could be made out on the side, so it's one of the later ones built in 1968. According to their Japanese Wikipedia article, the TeKi 200s were all retired bar one in 1988 so it's quite possible that this one has been parked here since then. It's not the only wagon here either; a further three box cars are parked nearby, and are visible from Google Earth and the nearby road. What isn't quite as visible is another diesel shunter, which can just be made out hiding in the nearest part of the shed.

 

 

Slightly further down the line at Chichibu Station, we have another case study of a recycled wagon serving as a storage building - but how often do you see a railway using a complete wagon in this role? Our subject this time is WaKi 813, one of fifty-five wagons built by Nippon Sharyo in 1968 to the same design as the JNR WaKi 5000. Japanese Wikipedia doesn't mention when these stopped running, but 813 is apparently the last survivor of its type since sister WaKi 824 was dismantled in 2019 after being displayed at Mitsumineguchi Station's Chichibu Railway Car Park display.

 

Typically when you see freight car bodies being used as storage buildings, they tend to be grounded bodies. Not in these instances!

 

Alastair

[RS18U]

1 hour ago, ED75-775 said:

interesting blue roof tiles

Interesting indeed, and yes a nice detail to add on a building.

[RS18U]

8 minutes ago, ED75-775 said:

but how often do you see a railway using a complete wagon in this role?

I have seen this quite a bit here in western Canada, seems easy just to roll it into a little used siding, and voila, instant storage shed.

[Tony Galiani]

On our ride from Kochi to Tokyo, I spotted two WaMus parked on a siding in one of the JR yards - couldn't react to take a picture as I was pretty surprised.  I had only seen grounded WaMus in the past.  They both were in the original brown paint scheme and looked in decent shape (though hard to tell for sure as we sped by).  They appeared coupled together and the siding was the furthest from the main part of the yard.

Cheers,

Tony

 

[cteno4]

3 hours ago, RS18U said:

I have seen this quite a bit here in western Canada, seems easy just to roll it into a little used siding, and voila, instant storage shed.

 

Yes an i think it was fairly common here in the US as well, ive seen random boxcars sitting around a lot at odd sidings and many times pile of ties and rails next to them.

 

When i was a kid i lived right next to a bunch of railway sidings for local industry and would watch the cars being shunted all the time in and out [and if a nice brakeman was working they would let me ride around with them. But one older box car at the end of a siding never moved and had weeds grousing all around it. The local RR workers used it as a storage shed for big tools and hardware for rail repair. Wasn’t a huge amount of stuff in it and I think it just was very cheap and easy way to have a secured shed of the bulky stuff out of the weather near where they used it and they could move it if needed later. This one though looked as though it was there for 50 years, but it was a fairly modern box car.

 

jeff

[ED75-775]

8 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

On our ride from Kochi to Tokyo, I spotted two WaMus parked on a siding in one of the JR yards

Hah, that reminds me that I saw a string of five WaMu 80000s parked at the freight terminal beside Universal Studios Osaka. And they're not the only ones either, a quick Google Maps search revealed another seven WaMus hiding further back plus an older TaKi tanker parked up at a fuel terminal right at end of track. Funny enough, my Google-fu also brought up @yakumo381's layout thread, including a photo of - nine WaMus! Looks like a few might have been thinned out over time.

 

So now I have spent the better part of a hour going down a rabbit hole and finding that I should really spend more time raiding the Forum for more inspirational ideas. Something tells me I am in danger now...

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

And on the theme of inspirational ideas, have some townscape scenes for the interested.

 

 

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

As we get higher into the hills, the track does start winding around considerably. This is a great place to be in the rear of the train, as you can pop the window open and shoot scenes like this. Just beware that you don't lean out too far; in order to get these shots I held my camera just outside the window sill which is the safest way IMO to do this, provided one is sensible about how and when they do it.