All stops sleeper train "Karamatsu" Otaru-Kushiro

[bikkuri bahn]

JNR ran a few sleeper trains that were classified as locals/stoppers, rather than the usual express or ltd. express designations.  Though they were "futsu ressha", they were given monikers from the fact that they had sleeping cars requiring reservations.  In Kyushu, there was the "Nagasaki" (Moji-Nagasaki), in Kansai "Hayatama" (Tennoji-Nagoya via Hanwa, Kisei, and Kansai Lines), as well as the "Sanin" (Kyoto-Matsue), and finally in Hokkaido the "Karamatsu" (Otaru-Kushiro).  They managed to soldier on into the twilight of the JNR era, but were all off by 1984 or so.

 

I came across this series of b/w pictures, which documents the last year (1980) Karamatsu ran.  A nice photo documentary style, which gives some sense of the atmosphere of this train.

 

http://ariaribox.exblog.jp/14956098/

http://ariaribox.exblog.jp/14966291/

http://ariaribox.exblog.jp/14971247/

 

I like this picture from the last series, of the departures board at Kushiro Station (screen shot). It shows 10 regular local trains in the up direction, 3 limited express (Oozora), 4 expresses (all DMUs except the final one, which is a sleeper train Karikachi #8), and the local Karamatsu, which departs Kushiro at 19:00.  In comparison, the current (2011) up departures at Kushiro station consist of 14 locals and 7 limited expresses, with no night trains or expresses. Of course travel time to Sapporo is much faster and convenient now, but thirty years ago the operations were more interesting and diverse, I would say.

[scott]

Nice pictures--thanks for posting those links.

 

Interesting that a train in Hokkaido was called Karamatsu, which, according to Wikipedia, is a species of larch that grows in Chubu and Kanto.

[bikkuri bahn]

Interesting that a train in Hokkaido was called Karamatsu, which, according to Wikipedia, is a species of larch that grows in Chubu and Kanto.

 

Yes, it was introduced in the form of seedlings from Nagano Prefecture, and proved to be hardy enough for the Hokkaido winters.  This, and it's fast growth, made it a prime source for logging, especially to supply the Hokkaido coal mining industry.

[Nick_Burman]

Nice, but...oh hell, imagine the pain of having to travel all night on those seats!

 

Here in Brazil we used to have plenty of such trains - more than often they were the only kind of train plying a particular route. Roughly 20 years ago my father and I travelled on the weekly Bandeirante train from Sao Paulo to Brasilia (actually it was composed of two trains - a broad-gauge electric-hauled express from Sao Paulo 60 miles to Campinas with a diesel-hauled meter-gauge connection for the remaining 560 miles to Brasilia). Unfortunately the sleeping cars were fully booked so we had to travel First Class (reclining seats). The train stopped at every station on its 24h schedule - some of these stations were in the middle of nowhere and existed just to house the stationmaster who controlled the associated passing siding and block token machines. Many times along the trip I was awoken somewhere in the wilds of Goias or Minas Gerais state as the train slowed down, to peer out of the coach windows and glimpse the block token hoops being exchanged followed by the loud tractor-like CHUG-CHUG-CHUG of the GE U20C on the point as the engineer whipped the train back to track speed (a leisurely 60km/h...). Good memories...

 

Cheers NB

[bikkuri bahn]

Nice, but...oh hell, imagine the pain of having to travel all night on those seats!

 

Yes, quite.  I suspect anybody who wanted to travel most of the distance of this service in some comfort opted for a berth.  I also think, being a local, many of the passengers (for example, the high school students pictured), used this train for their commute.  The train also had baggage cars, so it carried packages as JNR was in the express package business then. Very much a jack-of-all-trades "accomodation" train, of the sort that no longer exists in our hyper-paced, efficiency driven world.

[westfalen]

Like the overnight 'mail' trains here in Australia that disappeared around the same time. Modelling the 60's/70's in Japan looks more appealing all the time.