ED75's Random Japanese Trip Photos

[Tony Galiani]

Already looking forward to your June posts - get up early, make some coffee, ignore the cats and sit down to start my day with an Alastair travel report!

Cheers,

Tony

[ED75-775]

Time to head out of Tokyo! In keeping with our tour around the city, we'll follow the same anticlockwise route. Let's start off with my first day trip out of Tokyo: to Ōme.

 

 

Obligatory station sign photo, just to prove I've been all the way out here... it's also fairly ornate compared to some of the other ones I've seen around Tokyo which tend to be very business-like.

 

 

My destination was some fifteen minutes away up a hill and through a garden...

 

 

...which apparently is home to a grove of sakura trees, although I'd come too late to observe them at their finest. And what do you know? The sign also reveals that we are very close to our destination: the Ōme Railway Park. These last two shots were in fact taken as I hiked back to the station in preparation to head to Yokohama for the first time.

 

As has already been referenced elsewhere on the forum, the Ōme Railway Park is closed until 2026 for renovation, so I hope that the photos that will follow give some idea of what to have expected when it was open. On retrospect it did feel a little tired and perhaps confused: was it a railway museum or a kiddy-ride park with trains? Perhaps we'll know when it reopens.

 

Alastair

Edited yesterday at 12:30 AM by ED75-775

[ED75-775]

During my first trip in 2019, the Ōme Railway Park would be my second point of contact with Japanese steam (somehow I would miss C11 292 at Shimbashi completely during that trip!) after my first trip to the Railway Museum in Omiya. Opened on 19 October 1962 in a corner of Nagayama Park in Ōme, the Railway Park was originally an open-air museum to commemorate ninety years of railways in Japan. At the time of my visit in May 2019, there were eleven pieces of rolling stock on display, mostly under protective roofs built in 2007; some had open access to their cabs while others had either limited or no access.

 

Rather than punt through everything in the collection, I'll share a few highlights from my collection. These shots are all from my iPod Touch, which at that time was my only camera following the demise of my old Canon at the Railway Museum the day before.

 

 

Down at the far end of the site under an overall roof, the museum displayed five locomotives dating from the earlier years of Japanese steam. While 2-4-0T No. 110 would be removed in just a few months time for reassembly and relocation to CIAL Sakuragicho, the other four locomotives are still there, although they haven't been moved up to fully occupy the track space left by 110. From left, we have JGR 110, partially obscured 5500 class 4-4-0 No. 5540, 8620 class 2-6-0 No. 8620, and 2120 class 0-6-2T No. 2221.

 

 

Speaking of 8620, here she is. It's one of several locomotives you can actually climb into the cab of - I know I did! At that time I wasn't aware of its historical significance as the first of 672 locomotives built over a fifteen-year period from 1914, or that it was Japan's first domestically-produced passenger steam locomotive. Fun fact, it's also the only 8620 in preservation with the S-shaped running board under the cab since sister 8630 received a later-series cab during overhaul at Tsuchizaki Workshops in 1972. A model of one of these earlier 8620s remains high on my wish list, although I think I will be waiting for a very, very long time...

 

 

Just behind it was 8620's freight counterpart, 9600 class 2-8-0 No. 9608, the oldest surviving 9600 class. These engines were Japan's first domestically-produced freight locomotives, with a total of 770 built over a thirteen-year period from 1913 onwards. There are forty-three of these engines in preservation across Japan; forty built for the JGR and three built for private operators. It's also the only 9600 on public display with the S-shaped running board, although the the Japan Railway Preservation Society's 'Yamada Collection' may have up to three more engines with this feature stored in Ebetsu. Once again, note the open cab access!

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

Moving now towards the other side of the park:

 

 

The only non-steam locomotive on site is electric locomotive ED16 1, one of a class of eighteen locomotives built in 1931, and now the only survivor of the type after two sister locomotives were scrapped in 2015 and 2022 respectively. This type operated over both the Chuo Line and Ōme Line in regular service, so it's only fitting that ED16 1 has found a home here in 1980. Its arrival though wasn't without controversy as it replaced the park's SuShi 28 dining carriage, which had been deteriorated beyond repair and been scrapped.

 

 

Slightly beyond, there's another cluster of four vehicles. From left, we have EMU car KuMoHa 40054, C11 class 2-6-4T tank locomotive C11 1, and just visible behind the C11, E10 class 2-10-4T heavy tank locomotive E10 2. While the C11 and the E10 have been resident at the Ōme Railway Park since January 1963, the KuMoHa is the most recent arrival, having been moved here in 2007 to replace C51 5 when it was relocated to the Railway Museum. We'll see the C51 in its new home in the near future.

 

 

And the E10 in all its glory! Unlike most of the locomotives here, there's restricted access to the cab - you can get in, but there's a glass screen in the cab behind the driver's and fireman's seats preventing access to the controls. It's one of two locomotives I recall having restricted access with the other being the 2120 class tank over the other side of the park.

These locomotives have an interesting history; built in 1948 as the last all-new steam locomotives for the Japanese National Railways, they were also the only right-hand drive locomotives in its fleet, being originally designed for bunker-first operation. While that was fine on a locomotive intended for use only as a helper/banker locomotive on the Itaya Pass section of the Ou Main Line, it wasn't so practical when the locomotives were transferred elsewhere - first to Hitoyoshi for use on the Yatake Pass section of the Hisatsu Line, and later to Kanazawa for use on the Kurikawa Pass section of the Hokuriku Main Line. All five were thus converted to run smokebox-first, but retained their unusual right-hand driving position; E10 2 was so modified in 1954 while based in Kanazawa, according to this database of Japanese locomotives.

 

Alastair

[ED75-775]

And lastly before we move on: parked in the shadow of the main building is D51 452. This was the last steam locomotive to arrive at Ōme, doing so in December 1972. Its service history is a little murky, but from what the locomotive database suggests, it finished its working career somewhere in the Kansai area. Unlike any of the other locomotives or the 0 series Shinkansen car on site, the D51's cab is accessible from both sides.

 

 

As for the main building, I'm sorry to say that there wasn't much in there apart from a display of models, some photographs and information panels (all in Japanese) and a 'pay-per-use, have-a-go' H0 scale layout.

 

 

Having visited once in 2019 I'm glad I did so, but I am reserved as to whether I'd make the effort to trek all the way out to Ōme again. The park's main drawcards are of course its collection of locomotives, plus the fact you can get up close and personal with them. However, it was showing its age at the time of my visit, and the proliferation of kiddy rides, even if most of them were train-themed, rather confused the whole point of the place. To paraphrase myself from earlier, was it a railway museum, or a kiddy-ride park featuring trains?

 

In the meantime, for those wanting to experience the Ōme Railway Park as it was can do so through Google Maps Streetview, circa February 2017. The latest images, also from Streetview, suggest that the main building (shades of railway office rather than railway station) is staying at which point the changes might be to the displays inside. Hopefully as part of the renovation the last exposed locomotives and the 0 series shinkansen car are in line for new shelter roofs, and all of the equipment for a cosmetic restoration. We will have to wait and see!

 

Alastair