Changes to JR West express services in Kansai

[miyakoji]

According to the Yomiuri, JR West's Kita-Kinki limited express will be called the Kounotori (white stork) from next spring, and the Monju and Explorer Discovery (Kitakinki Tango Railway) services will be discontinued.  I wonder what KTR will do with those 6 express DMUs.  I always thought they looked like spacecraft or something, but not really in a good way.  Whether it'll be coordinated I don't know, but the renaming of the Kita-Kinki service should coincide with the arrival of the new 287 series rolling stock.

 

http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/news/20101008-OYO1T00547.htm

[bikkuri bahn]

According to the Yomiuri, JR West's Kita-Kinki limited express will be called the Kounotori (white stork) from next spring, and the Monju and Explorer Discovery (Kitakinki Tango Railway) services will be discontinued.  I wonder what KTR will do with those 6 express DMUs.  I always thought they looked like spacecraft or something, but not really in a good way.  Whether it'll be coordinated I don't know, but the renaming of the Kita-Kinki service should coincide with the arrival of the new 287 series rolling stock.

 

http://osaka.yomiuri.co.jp/news/20101008-OYO1T00547.htm

 

Yes. it'll be interesting to see how that surplus stock will turn up: either sold to some other 3rd sector operator, a few kept for intra-system services, or scrapped.  Anyway, there will no longer be any direct services from Osaka, you'll have to transfer at Fukuchiyama or Toyooka.  Anyway, the trend has always been toward improving the services of trunk lines with new rolling stock, and downgrading through services, which are expensive to run (what I call the "shinkansen effect", though in this case it's the JR zairaisen/3rd sector interface).