Turning the old into the new on the JNR

[Nick_Burman]

 

Converting old wooden coaches into new steel ones on the JNR in the 1950's.

 

Lovely images of mixed trains with wooden coaches and fantastic scenes from inside a JNR car shop.

 

Cheers NB

[bikkuri bahn]

Excellent film, you don't find much (any?) of this type of footage (conversion of rolling stock) anywhere, and a nice length of 20 min.  It chronicles the 47 day process of conversion of a naha 22000 wooden-bodied coach to an oha 61 steel-bodied coach.  The factory is the Takasago Plant in Hyogo Prefecture. Interesting is the recovered underframe of the naha is widened and split in half, and then a new section is spliced to extend the frame.  The movie mentions the life-expired nature of the original stock, but another reason is safety- JNR in the immediate post-war period experienced a large number of deadly accidents, with wooden-bodied coaches contributing to high fatalities.  The remodelled coach, oha 61379, is lettered [米トリ], which signifies it being based in Tottori, likely for Sanin Main Line services.  Typically the oha 61　series was used on secondary main line services (i.e. Sanin Main Line, Kansai M.L., Ou M.L.), not being seen often on the primary trunk lines like the Tokaido or Sanyo.