Funky old Fukui Railway

[bill937ca]

The Fukui Railway is a funky mix of streetcar line and railway which was somewhat updated in 2006 after the closure of Meitetsu's Gifu 600V lines.  The Fukui Railway has a 20.9 km mainline and a single 0.5 km branch to the Fukui JR station.

 

High platform trains stop at curb level stations on wide streets, mainline switches are covered by snow fences and currently a mix of low floor and high floor trains and cars.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyGutUmPg7M&NR=1

 

 

There is PDF timetable showing all stations on the Fukui Railway.  Local trains are in black and express trains are in reddish pink.

 

http://www.fukutetsu.jp/traintime/fukui-small.pdf

 

This is a profile of the line as of 1994 on the Japanese Railway Society web site. Then as now all of the rolling stock is second hand.

 

http://www.japaneserailwaysociety.com/jrs/members/oliver/fukui/fukuirailway.htm

 

Checkout the track center in this video.  Its full size trains on 1067mm gauge track.  It looks like a good prototype for Tomix tram track and Tomytec Railway Collection trains.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls-jV1FeGbc&feature=PlayList&p=BD17D61BDDBFA637&index=15

[scott]

What are the arches that the express railcar runs through in the last video?

[bill937ca]

What are the arches that the express railcar runs through in the last video?

 

A snow shelter over switches.  This region of Japan gets very heavy snow falls.

[scott]

Cool--that makes sense. I had seen something similar on another site or  video, but didn't make the connection.

[Mudkip Orange]

I'm diggin' the James Bond Love Scene background music.