SL Aonami-go?!

[miyakoji]

We've seen some excellent videos of operations on the Nagoya Rinkai Railway around JR Central's Kasadera Station and Meitetsu's Oe and Higashi-Nagoyako Stations, and even those of us who didn't care about it previously have developed an interest (I mostly mean me ).  As some of you may know, (edited, I blame this error on leftover turkey ) Meirin does not own the so-called Aonami Line, officially the Nishi-Nagoyako Line (higashi is east, nishi is west), but Nagoya Rinkai Kosoku Tetsudou does.  Passenger service began on this line October 6, 2004 between Nagoya Station and Kinjō-Futō Station, 15.4km south.

 

Well, I just saw something fairly surprising in the Hobidas newsfeed: on February 16th and 17th of next year, C56 160, 3 12-series passenger cars, and a DE10 will operate 3 round trips each day between Nagoya Station and Nagoya Freight Terminal Station.  Only a 5.1km run sadly, but I'm not aware of any other steam excursions operated in the Chubu region by JR Central or anyone else.  According to Wikipedia, steam freight ceased on April 25, 1971.  C56 160 is JR West's locomotive, based at Umekoji in Kyoto, but throughout its life, during regular revenue service with JNR and later as an excursion locomotive with JNR and JR West, it has operated all over the country.

 

This is really quite something and I'm looking forward to all the coverage on youtube !  The tetsudo.com link says that this is the result of a suggestion made by Nagoya mayor Takashi Kawamura, and about 500,000 US dollars of municipal money was budgeted to help this happen.  I'll probably read that a few more times to see if I'm making a mistake, but I don't think so .  Some visuals:

 

Google map of Nagoya Station: http://maps.google.co.jp/?ll=35.170072,136.881967&spn=0.015137,0.022316&t=m&z=16&brcurrent=3,0x6003765ee7e92def:0x3c7625a965f71df1,1

Google map of Nagoya Freight Terminal Station: http://maps.google.co.jp/?ll=35.13698,136.862435&spn=0.003786,0.005579&t=h&z=18&brcurrent=3,0x600377a0da3f6729:0xc548f144c08d4a64,1

 

I've centered the second map on the yard between Arako and Minami-Arako passenger stations, it's not totally clear where the train will stop.

 

Hobidas News link: http://rail.hobidas.com/news/info/article/134583.html

tetsudo.com link: http://www.tetsudo.com/news/774/%E3%81%82%E3%81%8A%E3%81%AA%E3%81%BF%E7%B7%9A%E3%81%A7SL%E9%81%8B%E8%A1%8C%E3%80%81%E6%9D%A5%E5%B9%B42%E6%9C%88%E5%AE%9F%E9%A8%93/

Tetsudou Fan event news: http://railf.jp/event/2012/11/21/140000.html

Nagoya City website with PDF link (look for PDF icon and 1.33M file): http://www.city.nagoya.jp/jutakutoshi/page/0000042196.html

English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aonami_Line

 

zenmen tenbou by JNR113keiexpressizu, Nagoya to Kinjo-Futo (southbound):

 

side window view by seigen120kaihin, Nagoya to Kinjo-Futo, view out west side of train:

 

side window view by seigen120kaihin, Kinjo-Futo to Nagoya, view out east side of train:

[bikkuri bahn]

According to the Asahi, the weekend run is a test to see the viability of a year-round operation.  Apparently the mayor wants to make Nagoya a "kingdom/shrine of railways" (by this I think he means in the attracting tourists sense).  As there is no turning facility at Nagoya Freight Terminal Sta., the DE10 will haul the train back to Nagoya Station (push-pull).

 

Steam runs like this are rare within urban areas.  The amount of smoke, noise, etc. will be measured to see if it falls within acceptable norms.  Easy access from Nagoya Station, and the fact that the line runs through industrial areas on a largely elevated ROW seem favorable.  Also possibly cuts down on lineside freeloaders who don't ride the train (this one or the regular Aonami L. trains) but just drive in their cars to get pix.

[miyakoji]

Nagoya is not the first city that comes to mind when I think of Japanese railways.  The last paragraph of the tetsudo.com article makes more sense considering what you saw in the Asahi.  I wonder why they aren't taking this all the way down to Kinjo-futo.  Nagoya to Arako is only 7 minutes by the regular Aonami timetable.

[Sacto1985]

Nagoya is not the first city that comes to mind when I think of Japanese railways.  The last paragraph of the tetsudo.com article makes more sense considering what you saw in the Asahi.  I wonder why they aren't taking this all the way down to Kinjo-futo.  Nagoya to Arako is only 7 minutes by the regular Aonami timetable.

 

I agree--thanks to the influence of the gigantic Toyota Motor Corporation, Aichi Prefecture is heavily auto-dominated, even with the Shinkansen line going through town and Nagoya's excellent Meitetsu commuter train system. It will be interesting to see how are they going to run SL tourist service in this part of Japan.