views of JR West's operations in Shimane and Tottori

[miyakoji]

Prototypes, pictures and videos is looking a little slow and my disused right-of-ways posts haven't sparked any heated debate so here are some of nimo5's latest videos

 

These two feature Masuda; in the first the station, in the second, the town itself.  I had a short layover at Masuda once when traveling from Tsuwano to Hagi and then again a few days later when returning to the relative civilization of Okayama-ken .  On the way to Hagi the JR guy let me out of the station--I was not traveling on a seishun 18, and the regular fare ticket I was carrying didn't entitle me to this, I don't think--so I had a walk around, on a winter night, eventually winding up at some kind of donburi shop.  I remember being unable to understand much of anything except for some rolling r's when Kim Jong Il was on the TV news .

 

Not a caternary in sight, this is KIHA and DD territory.  Naturally I would like to see more KIHA40s rather than KIHA120s but oh well.  A few KIHA187s around, which I like a lot because they seem to accelerate hard and are tilting trains, becoming more and more rare with the gradual retirement of the JNR 381s.

 

 

 

nimo5 has given these next 4 his "Landscape with Railway JAPAN" title, "tetsudou no aru fukei" in Japanese.  For some reason this has a strong Showa-era vibe to me, I associate it with NHK productions like the mini-documentary Shin Nihon Kikou which often featured middle-of-nowhere locations like... well, pretty much anywhere up and down the Sea of Japan coast will do .  I don't know if it's the location, the scenery, the rolling stock, or perhaps the title itself, but I think it's bleeping great.  A bit of instrumental enka and the occasional tinny voice-over would really complete the picture.

 

The first video is west of Nishi-Izumo Station on the Sanin Main Line.  You can see some KIHA187s and 121/126s which beat the hell out of the 120s.  I like the look of the 121/126, more than the 223/521 look-a-like KIHA127 that JRW is running in southwestern Hyogo-ken.  The 121/126 seems like a more proper successor to the KIHA40, and less of a damned railbus.  There's some trash on the beach which surprises me a little.  The second video shows some freight on the Hakubi Line.  The whole thing is good but I especially like it from about 4:25.

 

 

 

The next two are pretty much kick-ass from beginning to end, although one thing that especially interested me was his title which includes the term Oku-Hinoji (my romanization, in Japanese 奥日野路).  I've been doing some searching on it, but getting very little.  In other parts of Japan, I think of the various -ji names like Hidaji 飛騨路 in Gifu-ken, Tambaji 丹波路 in Hyogo-ken/Kyoto-fu, and of course Miyakoji 都路 in Nara-ken/Kyoto-fu, as historically legitimate names, as Hida and Tamba were provinces and Miyako is an old name for Kyoto.  One thing that does come up in search results on Oku-Hino is tatara, the type of furnace used to smelt the steel that will become a sword.  Here's an interesting link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatara_%28furnace%29 .  This town is Hino-cho, and the river is the Hinogawa.  The second video features more snow.  I'd like to see something other than the 287 as the 381 Yakumo's successor.  They only completed renewal on this fleet last year, rebranding the trains Yuttari Yakumo, so hopefully they plan on getting several more years out of them.  By the time they've really had it, maybe there will be an alternative to the 287.

 

 

[bikkuri bahn]

Thanks for the informative post, sure beats seemingly endless threads about new releases and DCC

 

Some random comments:

 

I think with a regular josha-ken, breaking journey en-route (tochuu gesha), is permitted after a certain distance, I can't recall the exact number.  

 

I agree with your assessment of Kiha 120, to me there are the Pacers of Japanese railways (UK enthusiasts will know what I'm talking about).

 

Shin-Nihon Kikou is one of my favorite programs produced by NHK.  They had some excellent footage of steam operations (in broadcast quality) back in the last days in the early 70's.

 

Oku-Hino is a region I wasn't aware about.  Doesn't help publicity-wise that it's in Ura-Nihon, but seems like a scenic region.  Tottori is more than just sand dunes...

[aleith]

I think with a regular josha-ken, breaking journey en-route (tochuu gesha), is permitted after a certain distance, I can't recall the exact number.  

It's 100kms. See this table below, after a certain distance the ticket can also be used on subsequent days even though its a standard Jo-sha-ken. Look for the section 'Validity of Ticket'

 

http://desktoptetsu.web.infoseek.co.jp/rule.htm