Shinkansen utilization and "demotion"

[spacecadet]

I'm not sure if this happens on the narrow gauge lines but it seems like a standard thing on the shinkansen.

 

Is there a strategy or plan to the way JR utilizes their shinkansen models over their lifespan?  Or do they just phase out trains in stages as they buy new ones (ie. the Amtrak strategy)?

 

I have noticed that shinkansen trains always seem to be initially purchased in 16 car sets, later reduced to 12, then 6, then sometimes eventually 4.  During that time, they may go from running Nozomi (or equivalent) service, to Hikari, and finally Kodama, before eventually being shuttled off to a side line somewhere.

 

I've often wondered about this demotion pattern (whether it's planned in advance or these decisions are made later, and why) but I guess it ties into a larger question about overall shinkansen utilization.  New shinkansen models seem to be introduced every couple of years, and sometimes there don't seem to be clear improvements from one model to the next.  For example, the 700 series is slower than the 500 series, and the 500 series itself was considered kind of a failure in design over the earlier 300, 100 and 0 series (mostly due to its shape).  Do they really need so many new models?  If a design is successful, why don't they continue maintaining current equipment for longer (the 0 series lasted what, more than 40 years?) and designing new trains the same way but with small improvements?  (I guess that's what the N700 is... but why don't we see this more often?)  Do shinkansen trains really wear out that fast?  The 100 series I rode on in 2001 seemed like it was in like-new condition, and it's probably retired now.

 

The railfan in me loves seeing all the new models, but it's always struck me as a bit wasteful.  Am I way off base?

[bill937ca]

There were various issues with the 500 series.  Its sloping shape meant there were fewer seats in the lead cars than other Shinkansens, which meant reserved seat passengers lost their seats when 500 trains had to replace trains of other series. This made the trains very unpopular with crews.  There was a sonic boom when these trains exited tunnels because of their shape. (Flying ballast has been another by product of Shinkansen operations).

 

Power consumption is a very large issue with the older trains.

[KenS]

Narrow gauge trains get "demoted". The first ones of a new model tend to go to lines with the heaviest usage (e.g., the Chuo line in Tokyo, for example), displacing older and more worn stock to other lines (and I suspect only the cars in better repair get displaced, the most worn ones are likely scrapped). The length could be the same, or the sets could be broken up to fit lines that have lesser requirements.

 

What I don't think you're as likely to see is the express/local downgrade that the Shinkansen has, as on suburban/regional lines the Limited Express stock is often very different from the Local trains (intended to provide a justification for the higher cost fare, where Shinkansen fares are probably mostly justified by the speed). In urban lines, the same trains tend to get used as both Rapid and Local trains, probably to allow flexibility in schedule changes (although that isn't universal).

 

However, many of the older 485 series trains (which filled more of a regional role in the days before the Shinkansen network was as widespread as it is now) were repurposed into niche roles (serving resort areas, or rebuilt into luxury "Joyful Train" designs for charter use), and have had a very long life as a result; the operating ones today are at least 30+ years old, and could be over 40.

 

Lifespan of equipment depends on many things.  JNR's old 101 series commuter equipment was in service for 45 years. But in part that was due to the heavy construction (which had a high operating cost in painting and power to run it). JR East launched a "half the cost, half the lifespan" design effort in the early 1990s, and the 209 and E231 were the fruits of that.  These newer trains use lightweight materials, making them cheaper to operate, but more prone to wear from vibration and other causes. Considering how much use they get, it's not really wasteful to retire them after 15-20 years, when the replacement costs little more than the re-hab, and probably is cheaper to operate due to technological advances.

 

At the same time, the Series 500 Shinkansen was demoted rather quickly, but that appears to have been due to it's poorer operating costs and/or noise (it was the last, I think, of the trains without the nose designs that minimize "tunnel boom", and that prevented it from ever reaching its true potential).  It was also a very expensive train to buy, so relatively few sets were made (144 cars, vs 1328 for the 700 series, per wikipedia).

[spacecadet]

So a followup question occurs to me... what do they actually *do* with all these retired cars and trains?  Are they recycled?  Are they just dumped in the ocean?

 

With the amount of trains in use and the number of vehicles that must be retired each year as a result of this "half the cost, half the longevity" policy, I gotta think there must be some giant piles of scrap metal somewhere. 

[bill937ca]

So a followup question occurs to me... what do they actually *do* with all these retired cars and trains?  Are they recycled?  Are they just dumped in the ocean?

 

Some are sold to small private railways, some are sold to other countries, some Blue train coaches were recently donated to the Philippines (as long as the shipping charges are paid) and some are scrapped.

[David]

So a followup question occurs to me... what do they actually *do* with all these retired cars and trains?  Are they recycled?  Are they just dumped in the ocean?

 

Any useful components (like the cab controls) are stripped out by workmen, and then an excavator with a claw attachment tears the train apart. The pieces of scrap metal get loaded into a dump truck or railway wagon to be taken away (scrap metal, like in the US, gets melted down and reused). I don't think they dump them in the ocean like America does with subway trains (being wasteful is like a sin in Japan).

 

Dramatization

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/hankyu2661/19222601.html

[spacecadet]

Dramatization

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/hankyu2661/19222601.html

 

 

Ha!  That was pretty funny.

[Tecchan]

I think one of the biggest failure in 500 series was it's cost. I might be wrong but I think t's the most expensive Shinkansen ever.

And of course engineering problems solved with 700 & 700N series...

 

Concerning recycling, I honestly don't know. I would dream about buying an old Shinkansen and make my home inside!!! 300 series would look nice in my garden, except I cannot fit even one car... ;-)

[westfalen]

Regarding the '0' series, while the design was over 40 years old when the last was taken out of service individual trains had about the same lifespan as other shinkansen types, the last sets were built in 1986 with older sets starting to be withdrawn from the late 70's while new ones were still being built.

[spacecadet]

Regarding the '0' series, while the design was over 40 years old when the last was taken out of service individual trains had about the same lifespan as other shinkansen types, the last sets were built in 1986 with older sets starting to be withdrawn from the late 70's while new ones were still being built.

 

Well that was part of what I was wondering... assuming the basic design of, say, the N700 series is satisfactory, will they just continue producing N700 trains for the next 40 years?  Why do they need to continue coming up with all-new designs, especially with the risk of failure (as in the 500 series)?

 

I don't know of any other countries that really do this.  I mean new models every once in a while, sure, but you still see the same basic TGV and ICE designs today as when they were first introduced, and I don't believe those are all old trains either.  It just seems like an odd way of running things, to basically have a new model of shinkansen every time a replacement is needed.  I mean I understand they'd be building new trains anyway, but designing and testing isn't free either - it's got to cost a lot more to produce an all new model than to just churn out the same one over and over.

[quashlo]

Well, it's not as if the N700 was an all-new design, since it did borrow the basic shape of the 700, but with significant improvements:

• Acceleration: 2.0 kphps → 2.6 kphps (time savings of 120 s going from 0 to 270 kph)
  
• New tilting capability (maintains higher speeds on curves)
  
• Electricity consumption reduced by 19%
  
• Air resistance reduced by 20%
  

In short, the N700 is not only faster than the 700 series, but also much more efficient. If they weren't considering any major improvements to the Tōkaidō Shinkansen infrastructure, then maybe the basic exterior design of the N700 will remain the same long into the future, but JR Central is already looking at increasing top speed on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen to 300 or 330 kph, which would likely affect future train designs as well. But if this happens, perhaps we will see JR Central borrow from JR East's E5 and E6 designs instead of starting fresh with a new design.

 

As for the 500 series, it was just overdesigned for the Tōkaidō Shinkansen infrastructure. There were some other issues like door placement, passenger capacity, and cabin interior design--and perhaps some inter-company rivalry (JR Central vs. JR West)--but I think the main reason was that it was just overspec'd for the line.

[bikkuri bahn]

*nice substantive thread

quashlo pretty much lays out the reasons, but to further elaborate, many of the railways in Japan operate in a competitive environment between each other and with other forms of transport.  Even small improvements (which ties in with the kaizen philosophy of manufacturing) that increase efficency (and thus reduce costs) give advantages when locked in business competition.  In addition, rolling stock has high utilization rates in Japan, for example, in the Tokyo Metro Area, commuter stock on certain lines is often running close to, if not over 100% full in the off peak hours- so wear and tear is greater than in some urban areas where the stock sits idle during the lunch hours.  Many passenger/urban railway operations in, say North America (all?) are publicly funded, and thus can always depend on the public largesse to cover operating cost shortfalls (tho subject to political whims).

[Mudkip Orange]

1067mm and standard-loading-gauge 1435mm stock gets passed around from private railway to private railway, and there's a lot of small rural and city operators who are running 2nd- and 3rd-hand stuff that was originally built for the major Tokyo and Kansai operators.

 

Chitetsu's ex-Keihan units come to mind...

[miyakoji]

I was just going to ask this, thanks guys!  A year ago or whenever, I remember seeing the first pics on Ompuchaneru of 500 series intermediate cars getting chopped up.  I thought it was a joke.  Now the 8-car sets are on Kodama service?  Tragic 

[jappomania]

Hi!

I just received a reply to this question from my friend in Japan

He confirm me that the reason because the 500 was demoted (and not the 300 serie that is planned to be retired and scrapped) is because for the top services improvement to 300 Kmh, all the train that run on Tokaido/Sanyo line needs to have the same speed capacity, the oldest trains like 300 (max speed 270Kmh) and 100 (240/270Kmh) are to much slow and that's can be a bottleneck for the fastest service.

All the 700 series are planned to be demoted to all station service Kodama and at the end of building all the N700 are assigned to Nozomi service, the "old" 500 is perfect for replace the small fleet of the last 100 series 4 cars P set and 6 cars K set until the N700 fleet was completed.

I hope is only a joke but the same policy is planned from Jr East, so the end of life for the double decker trains is signed    (I love the duck nose of the E4), the withdrawn of the old 400 fleet is only the start..

 

ciao

Massimo 

[to2leo]

I hope is only a joke but the same policy is planned from Jr East, so the end of life for the double decker trains is signed    (I love the duck nose of the E4), the withdrawn of the old 400 fleet is only the start..

ciao

Massimo 

 

I do hope this is a joke but if it is true then JR East should consider a new generation of double deckers Shinkansen due to capacity reasons.

[Fenway Park]

I agree that it is down to energy savings which takes into account the number of passengers per train etc. The 500 series may have been spectacular in design but the 700N carries more passengers and uses less energy. The 700N maybe slightly slower overall but few will complain of the slight increase in journey time.

 

The 231/233 series suburban EMU will have a shorter life than the 101/201/205/207/209etc but are lighter and more energy efficient.

 

However, I wonder what the Japanese make of the Eurostar and other SNCF units which are considerably older than most of the Shinkansen fleet.

 

At least the Japanese do not have George Osborne and they are more conservative with a small c than we are here in the UK.

 

The HS2 scheme to Birmingham and beyond should have been considered over 15 years ago. Sadly with our planning process and the NIMBY sector in Buckinghamshire it may never happen.

 

Oh well back to the planning of my 1960s JNR Kyushu steam layout which is not green: Coal fields and 9600s!!!!!

[miyakoji]

 

The 231/233 series suburban EMU will have a shorter life than the 101/201/205/207/209etc but are lighter and more energy efficient.

Not nitpicking, but I think you meant leave the 209 series out of the list of long-life cars.  The 209 was JRE's first experiment with these lighter, cheaper cars that are not meant to be refurbished like older ones were.

[westfalen]

Meanwhile here in Brisbane our 30+ year old EMU's are going through the shops for about their 4th major overhaul. We can't seem to get new units fast enough to keep up with service growth let alone allow retirement of old units.

[spacecadet]

Meanwhile here in Brisbane our 30+ year old EMU's are going through the shops for about their 4th major overhaul. We can't seem to get new units fast enough to keep up with service growth let alone allow retirement of old units.

 

In the US, some of our national rail passenger cars (Amtrak) are 60 years old.  The average age is more like 30 years old.  Our one high speed train, the Acela Express, is 11 years old and has been through one refurbishment already, and people were surprised when Amtrak started talking about a replacement because most people think of it as brand new.

 

Japan definitely has a different mentality.

[bikkuri bahn]

Japan definitely has a different mentality.

 

Very high utilization (wear and tear) and the need to save energy (Japan has high energy costs)- the oil shock of 1974 really had a devastating effect that has colored energy policies since.

[miyakoji]

the oil shock of 1974 really had a devastating effect that has colored energy policies since.

It should have had that effect everywhere

[westfalen]

the oil shock of 1974 really had a devastating effect that has colored energy policies since.

It should have had that effect everywhere

I would have if politicians were able to see past the next election.