Mikado types on passenger trains

[bikkuri bahn]

Answering a question by member upwpfan in the HO scale section.

 

First of all, D52 heavy mikado type.

 

Most famous use was on the Gotemba Line, hauling local passenger trains between Kozu and Numazu.  Typically a 5 car consist, with a coach/baggage at the front end for down trains (suhani type):

http://home.a00.itscom.net/yosan/jyoki/gotenba/gotenba.html (first section)

 

D52 types were also used on passenger/parcels trains on the Hakodate Main Line between Oshamambe and Hakodate.  Most notably, trains 41/42, a passenger and parcels train between Sapporo/Otaru and Hakodate via the Hakodate Main Line "mountain route".  D51 haulage between Otaru and Oshamambe, then D52 to Hakodate. 

 

This is a sequence of train 41 arriving at Mori Station and taking on water (1972):

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/br1020er/25809575.html

Edited May 31, 2013 by bikkuri bahn

[Nick_Burman]

BB,

 

Nagoya to Nagano, too, before the wires went up - in "Far Wheels" Charles Small rode an express up the Kiso valley pulled by double-headed Mikados.

 

Cheers NB

[Fenway Park]

Kagoshima Main Line until 1959 according to one Japanese loco history.

 

After WW2 there was a number of boiler explosions as the result of sub standard materials used in the war.

 

 

[bikkuri bahn]

Moving now to the D51 type.

 

As mentioned in other posts, the D51 was used on local passenger trains on routes with grades and lower speed requirements.

 

Hakodate main line, vicinity of Shioya:

http://www.geocities.jp/mmpapasan/hakodate.htm

The shorter train is a Otaru~Oshamambe local. The Hakodate main line in this area is a single track mountain route with numerous curves (in fact so much so I actually got mild motion sickness on a train here, the first and only time that has happened).

 

Some scenes at Ginzan late in the steam age (1973).  Of interest is the last sequence of three photos, of a train rounding the curve pulled by D51 1153, one of the last production units (Kawasaki 1944).  The train is #122, a Asahikawa-Hakodate long distance local (choukyoridonko), that took around 14 hours to cover the distance between those two cities.  As you can see, it had a postal car on the head end.

http://trainview.web.fc2.com/wb_old/ginzan/ginzan.html

 

A sample schedule of the long distance local trains that ran on the Hakodate Main Line mountain route (in 1977, after the end of steam and hauled by dd51).  Six trains/day total in both directions:

http://w01.tp1.jp/~a073009361/JIKOKU/local77/hakodate.htm

 

to be continued...

Edited May 31, 2013 by bikkuri bahn