Flat junction mania- Seibu

[bikkuri bahn]

 

Flat junctions are great places to watch railway operations, unfortunately they are relatively rare in Japan compared to Europe or even the United States, as they tend to get grade separated/undergrounded in improvement schemes, such as seen recently in Chofu on the Keio Line.

 

Seibu has a maze of lines/branches in the western Tokyo suburbs, a situation that leads to a number of junctions, some of which have interesting layouts.  The video above shows a couple of these on the Haijima Line, at Hagiyama and Ogawa.

-at 2:57 and 3:15 we see down and up Haijima Line trains clatter over the switch diamond crossings at Hagiyama, the line off to the right is the Tamako Line.

-at 4:25 you can briefly see the diamond crossing for the Tamako Line, which goes off to the right.

-at 5:00 a down Haijima-bound train traverses the two single slip switches at Ogawa. The single track line to the left is the Kokubunji Line.  I wouldn't mind living in that apartment off to the right of that junction :)

Edited February 2, 2013 by bikkuri bahn

[Sacto1985]

Alas, railroad crossings on major rail lines in Japan are starting to disappear in a fairly big way there. I've been communicating with Peter Payne (one of the co-founders of J-List.com, who sells Japanese goods to foreigners and is based in the small town of Isesaki in Gunma Prefecture) and he told me that even the JR East Ryōmō Line is undergoing a lot of grade separation reconstruction, and currently they are building elevated grade-separate track through  Isesaki, a reconstruction that may include the Tōbu Isesaki Line tracks, too.

Edited February 2, 2013 by Sacto1985