2 Axle - 4 Wheel Freight Cars

[John P Boogerd]

Does anyone know if the Japanese railways still used the 2-axle freight cars.  If so, where and what kind of engines are used.  If not, when were they discontinued.

[miyakoji]

I think the last of these were retired and scrapped last year. Maybe some still exist, but I don't think they're in service. Here are some JNS threads about it:

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/6665-wamu-80000-freight-cars-deadhead

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/5879-the-last-wamu-train-20120317

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/3837-ef66-with-wamu-check-this-out

[bikkuri bahn]

Yeah, with the withdrawal of the wamu's last year, the pickings have become really thin.  You can still see some tora gons on the SDF trains.

 

On the Tohoku Line:

 

Passing through Hachinohe Sta:

 

On the Tohoku Line again:

[cteno4]

bikkuri,

 

thanks great vids. always wanted to do some sort of military transport train and that was some great ideas there! interesting mix of cars used.

 

jeff

[miyakoji]

The waves of wind going through the rice field in that first one looks great

[KenS]

You can still see the 2-axle flat cars (Chi 1000) used as a spacer on heavy loads and in MOW trains (such as welded rail trains).  There are also Wamu 80000 boxcars spotted at some yard/station locations as mobile storage for wreck cleanup and MOW. The Yo 8000 2-axle caboose isn't freight per-se, but you'll see it on the end of oversize loads, trains transferring passenger cars from factory to buying railroad, and occaisionally on MOW trains.

 

MOW trains seem to largely use DE10 locos, while an oversize load or vehicle transfer can use any JRF loco.

 

Edit: fixed typos

Edited February 10, 2013 by KenS

[Das Steinkopf]

My apologises for bumping an old thread, today whilst scrounging around for some ideas for building a modern freight yard I decided to check out the yard at Ajikawaguchi using Google Maps, as I was scrolling along the tracks I noticed what looks to be at least 17 WAMU 80000's parked in sidings up the back of the yard. I know they have been out of service for a few years now but I am curious as to how many of them have survived if any at all, the watermark on the images has them dated as 2014 which is a year later than the videos that shows a number of them being scrapped.

 

[kvp]

Rolling stock can get misplaced or simply get stored somewhere until they are either needed or scrapped. Some of the cars could easily get sold to private operators for storage or internal freight movement. There are two cars nearby on another track that are either very rusty or have a brown paint. There is a picture taken 4 years ago with the same brown boxcars at the same location and the end view shows brown paint so those must be 280000 series. I think there is a point between scrap price and scrap costs that can be compared with usage as storage space, so it makes sense to keep a few cars around if they are not really worth scrapping.