What's This? Some Sort Of Inspection Vehicle?

[gmat]

Unfortunately with little work, I have free time, so I spent the day at Shinjuku Station. My two favorite spots are the at the northern edge of platforms 7/8 (Chou line to Tokyo) and more recently, the southern edge of platforms 5/6. (Narita Express) You can shoot about half of the lines from the former and most of the unusual stuff passes through or near the latter. You can also look at the electronic boards to see what is coming and when, but many are simply noted as out of service. You can't shoot the Sobu or Yamanote lines easily from either of those locations, though.

Today, at platforms 7/8, I noticed a few local railfans looking and shooting south. Then the number grew to six and they all were looking south. I asked one what was coming and he said something rare. So I waited too.

 

I thought that it was a diesel combo, so I didn't shoot the white center one very well. Sorry. The unusual configuration of the windows would seem to indicate that it may be used to check alignment of the tracks using optical or laser sensors.

Around 11:00 or 13:00 seems to be a lull period as I have recently shot diesels and freight trains passing through Shinjuku at that time. Shot another diesel passing transiting near 14:00.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the cars passed us, I may have been in the way as I was shooting behind them. I noticed that some of the guys had to run in front of me to shoot them going the other way.  Sorry. Didn't think.

 

The guy with the grey shirt and his friend, nearly hidden, had been shooting in that direction for the previous 20 minutes and checking their shots. It wasn't until later that I realized that they were probably testing settings before the subject arrived.

Best wishes,

Grant

[disturbman]

Clearly an inspection train and the dedicated vehicle wear exactly the same colors as JREast fleat of inspection trains. :)

 

Nice shots, I want the same train in my collection. (^^)

[miyakoji]

The blue/yellow end cars are JNR-era 143 series I think, although they could be 145 series.  The center car is MaYa50-5001, which according to wikipedia has existed in several different forms.  Previously it was called SuYa50-5001.  It's not clear how or if it changed when it was renamed.  There are some pictures around the net of it as SuYa, but it looks like it just had a different livery.  Before the SuYa classification it was OHaFu50-2301, which I think was just a regular passenger car, typically pulled by a DE10 in rural locations.

 

143 series inspection car: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E9%89%84143%E7%B3%BB%E9%9B%BB%E8%BB%8A

50 series passenger car: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E9%89%8450%E7%B3%BB%E5%AE%A2%E8%BB%8A

[gmat]

Thank you, miyakoji.

Do you think the guys would mind my shooting them and posting it to give background flavor to my shots?

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[miyakoji]

Thank you, miyakoji.

Do you think the guys would mind my shooting them and posting it to give background flavor to my shots?

 

Best wishes,

Grant

I don't know exactly what you mean, but I'm sure serious Japanese rail photographers value shots of rare equipment, so yeah, I'd definitely take pictures of them whenever possible.

 

One suggestions: try to catch the type/model information on the side of the body so it's easier to identify.  Can you read katakana and type katakana into your computer?  If so, it'll be very easy to find information on rolling stock that you saw.  If you find info you can't read, post it here, there are several people who can read Japanese who I'm sure are willing to explain.

[miyakoji]

here are two vids with MaYa50-5001 in the consist:

 

 

This one creeps me out for some reason:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncVWOD8Abj0

[KenS]

That's a station in the second video?  Wow, now that's claustrophobic!