JR Tokai's Kiha25 DMU

[miyakoji]

I'm not going to say I'm a big fan of anything JR Tokai outside the Tokaido Shinkansen.  Their current rolling stock is boring (proof below), the white/orange livery reminds of orange sherbet (I thought this word had 2 Rs), and finally their service on the Tokaido Mainline between Hamamatsu and Atami makes me mildly suicidal.  I'll take JR West's Sanyo Mainline in deep Okayama/Hiroshima/Yamaguchi inaka any day.  But Tokyo via Seishun 18 leaves few options.  Well, I suppose you could use the Chuo Line.  Ah, I've done that several times!

 

Anyway, here's a picture of a kiha25 next to a 313.  Which is which?  Who knows!  Who cares!  Yeah, if you look a little closer you can see the pantograph on the consist to the right.  Looks like the skirt is a little different.

 

image from Tetsudo Hobidas: http://rail.hobidas.com/blog/natori/archives/2010/11/17_1.html

 

and some video...

 

[ToniBabelony]

Oh lol. JR Central is pulling a 'JR West'

 

Differences I can spot on the front:

- Missing 3rd front light above the door;

- Different skirt;

- Different placement of windscreen wipers;

- Slightly altered sharfenberg coupler.

 

Also, you can spot them quickly because of the missing pantograph or the more prominent under-body.

[marknewton]

Toni, I hate to be pedantic, but those couplers are not Scharfenbergs. They are home grown - made by Sumitomo.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[bikkuri bahn]

I pretty much lost interest in JR Tokai operations once they retired their 113/115 series units.  At least they have some 117 series still around.  However, the Tokaido Line in Shizuoka Pref. still interests me in terms of freight.  Just this Saturday I went to Yoshiwara (in Fuji City) to check out the wamu box cars used in the paper mill business.

[Martijn Meerts]

I quite like the color schemes actually.. Simple and elegant.

[ToniBabelony]

Toni, I hate to be pedantic, but those couplers are not Scharfenbergs. They are home grown - made by Sumitomo.

 

Ah, I probably used 'scharfenberg' because I hear people use it frequently for MFC's (Multi Function Couplers). Thanks for the info, I'll as of now use 'MFC' to refer to these type of couplers.

 

P.s. I don't dislike the design of the 313/KIHA 25, but I do dislike the lack of creativity JRC has put into this project. They could at least have changed the design of the front a little bit more then that.

[westfalen]

I agree with Martijn Meerts about the paint scheme, I quite like it. I think that JR Tokai being the smallest of the mainland JR's don't have as much scope for variety but I think it's good to see a bit of uniformity across the fleet like the old JNR days.

 

Photo below is a real Scharfenberg, the stickers on them say so.

[KenS]

Toni, I hate to be pedantic, but those couplers are not Scharfenbergs. They are home grown - made by Sumitomo.

 

That piqued my interest, as I'd thought those were Scharfenbergs also.  According to Japanese Wikipedia, those are Shibata couplers, developed in the 1930's by Mamoru Shibata, a Japanese railway engineer.

 

The footnote describing them says:

Tight coupler Shibata expression machinery JPS Volume 31 No. 130 (issued February 20, 1928) in Japan features a summary of the coupler type electric coupler Sharufenberuku ceremony titled new automatic coupler iron elevated road in Hamburg was developed in 1929, shortly after being introduced, was initially tested in some of the organization for 32 Yokosuka Line train system. For good results in containing the practical side, Suita Tokaido Sanyo Line 1933 - 42 series train cars at the new products are equipped with electricity from the beginning Suma, equipped with a sequential basis to the national railroad lines in the Tokyo area later the same year, the principle The complete expression of tight coupler Shibata Government Railway Line in 1937 as a train. Shibata, focusing on that tight coupler suitable for use with the electrical coupler, in the late 1930s was also a hitch developed a new bottom mounting type electric, frustrated by the escalation of a war footing was.

 

So it sounds like it was a derivative of the Scharfenberg developed to, among other things, support electrical connections between cars.