January 15 - 115 Series Day on Shinano Railway

[miyakoji]

Several nice scenes on the Shinano Railway’s Kita Shinano Line on January 15, “115 Day” as indicated by the head mark on the red/grey set at the beginning.  The mountain the background seems to be Mt. Asama, and portions of the video are between Kurohime and Furuma.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sacto1985]

Has the Shinano Railway said anything about when will the last 115's be retired from revenue service on that railway?

[miyakoji]

1 hour ago, Sacto1985 said:

Has the Shinano Railway said anything about when will the last 115's be retired from revenue service on that railway?

The Shinano Railway page on Japanese Wikipedia says they’ll retire all 115s by 2028.  Coincidentally, I saw this news segment on RSK about Okayama Depot retiring their last two 115 formations in Shonan livery.  These were built in 1976 and were transferred to Okayama from Mitaka Depot in 1986.  After these are scrapped, Shinano’s Shonan formation will be last one.

 

 

 

 

 

[Sacto1985]

I believe JR West's Okayama Division still has a few 113/115 train sets in operation painted in Setouchi yellow, but those will likely disappear soon as more and more 227-500 series train sets arrive. West of Iwakuni, that may the last stand of the 113/115 series in any JR service, primarily operating between Iwakuni and Shimonoseki.

 

It will be very interesting to see how Shinano Railway handles the final retirement of the 115 series. Hopefully, it won't attract a overly-large crowd of railfans like what happened in 2013 when the 169 series train sets were finally retired.