Possible Scoop- JR East to request tenders for new rolling stock for Hachinohe Line

[bikkuri bahn]

I have checked the Japanese language internets, as well as the English language ones- no coverage of this, albeit the announcement is still not official.  This is possibly the first time JR East has requested foreign makers to apply for consideration.

 

 

June 20, 2014

East Japan Railway Company

 

Announcement of expected procurement of diesel railcars

 

As a basic policy of East Japan Railway Company (JR East), with respect to

procurement of goods, JR East broadly seeks high-quality and low-cost goods, with

sufficient after-sales service, both domestically and from abroad.

JR East plans to replace the aged diesel railcars on its Hachinohe Line in the future.

For the procurement of thenew railcars, JR East plans to invite a broad range of

applications from suppliers, both domestic and foreign.

 

source:

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/data/pdf/20140620_e_procurement.pdf

[ToniBabelony]

Yep, those KIHA 40s are starting to show their age. I can imagine the strain on them with the salty air on that line as well. It'd be interesting to see which foreign company will be interested in participating in the development of these trains. I wouldn't be surprised to see Bose or Phillips to be providing some kind of speaker system (Bose is rampant on JR East stations).

[bikkuri bahn]

Note the wording "with sufficient after-sales service"- basically they are saying to foreign makers- are you willing to send support staff all the way to rural northern Japan (i.e.not a cushy stockbroker job with a Roppongi high rise condo to live in), possibly on a couple of years assignment, to make sure your product meets requirements, and/or to train Japanese staff in maintenance, in Japanese, all for what is a very small order by JR East standards.

[Guest keio6000]

Umm, cushy roppoingi "stockbrokers" notwithstanding, maybe this is an open invite aimed more realistically at chinese or korean firms?

[miyakoji]

Interesting. Considering that they even have their own car manufacturing ability in J-Trec, and the shop at Nittsu, and that foreign manufacturers will probably have difficulty providing the support Bikkuri mentioned, plus there's Niigata Transys, I wonder why they made this English announcement.

[bikkuri bahn]

The day you see Korean or Chinese railcars running on Japanese rails is the death of the railway industry in Japan.  But seriously, this is part of the Japan-EU EPA agreements on railway equipment market opening measures.  I will make a post on that sometime in the future.

[miyakoji]

this is part of the Japan-EU EPA agreements on railway equipment market opening measures. I will make a post on that sometime in the future.

Ahhh, much clearer now .

[Sacto1985]

The obvious choice for the KiHa 40 replacements: the KiHa E130, which is available for production at Niigata Transys. Maybe Niigata Transys should produce 40-50 KiHa E130's not only to replace the KiHa 40's, but also the KiHa 110's on the nearby Ōminato Line, too.

[katoftw]

I've seem similar recently closer to home for our rail company. Buy allowing outsiders to tender also. It brings in bigger competition, and those that normally get the gig, ie Japanese companies had to give a better tendering contract deal. It's all about getting that better deal from the regulars that are seen as a shoe in for the contact/s. In the end, the share-holders and investors want the best bang for their buck, so this is just another way to do it.

[keitaro]

I`m under the impression the 130 is too over powered for that line. i think they want something light and cheap.

 

i would have thought the e200 to be a better choice. but maybe it is under powered...

 

didn`t they loose a few kiha`s in the tohoku earthquake/tsunami?

[Guest ___]

I would guess by including or requesting foreign bids may make the domestic builders to be a little more aggressive in thier bids, and JR-E's goal is to get lower bids in from the local builders.

[bikkuri bahn]

Good points by Shashinka and katoftw.  To me the diesel railcar industry in Japan is a bit moribund- Niigata Transys seems to be the primary go to builder for custom build designs, with the other makers, if they deem to bother, really just take an EMU body shell and sling a diesel motor under the floorboards.  A little more innovation/price competition would be good, if only to light a fire under the bigger firms.

[Mudkip Orange]

Considering the similarities between the Japanese loading gauge and UK W6A, one wonders if they will just end up purchasing Turbostars...

[kvp]

Not to mention the diesel desiro uk-s. But actually the emu body+diesel engine combination is not a bad thing, especially if they keep the electric power bogies and add a battery based hybrid system with a diesel genset. On the other hand, Niigata Transys has been making trains for the Japanese market since 1895, so they might be better suited for this tender. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choshi_Electric_Railway_300_series

[Densha]

The problem with non-Japanese trains is that they don't feature many things that are wanted in Japanese trains. They don't have the knowledge of all specific details of the Japanese railway system, the standardized use-the-space-in-the-train-as-efficient-as-possible-with-certain-kind-of-seating-arrangements-by-creating-square-trains-you-usually-only-see-in-Japan-thing, don't have any knowledge nor equipment for the Japanese ATC system, etc. etc. Not to forget that most, if not all, European train manufacturers have a standardized line of trains specifically for use on the European railway network, of course the Japanese companies on the other hand have a standardized line for the Japanese market.

 

So I doubt any foreign company has even a chance, also taking account the wanted local maintenance staff. I think this order is way too small to make any profit out of this for a foreign company. The Japanese companies have already production lines in use for similar rolling stock.

Exceptions are the British Javelin and the new intercity EMU's of course, but those are large orders.

[miyakoji]

I've gotta agree with Densha here, we're not going to see foreign-built rolling stock in any significant amount. It's either to bargain with Niigata (although I'd think they would be aware that the competitors aren't realistic threats and act accordingly), or it's just to meet some legal requirement as Bikkuri wrote.

[Guest ___]

I may be wrong, but I think the closest we have ever seen to foreign rolling stock was the 500-kei shinkansens and we ll knowhow that turned out.

[Densha]

I don't know that story, what is it about the 500 series?

[kvp]

 

Exceptions are the British Javelin and the new intercity EMU's of course, but those are large orders.

Since the end of the British rolling stock manufacturing, most new UK trains are made by foreign companies from Canada (Bombardier), France (Alstom), Germany (Siemens) and US (EMD). They might build a local factory, but the trains are designed and made by a foreign company. The same happened in Hungary, where today most new trains are made by the Swiss Stadler company in the old Hungarian railcar factory. The japanese have a more mature rail industry, with most manufacturers owned by big railroad companies and a few large and small independent ones (Hitachi, Niigata Transys) filling in the rest of the market. Actually considering the shrinking Japanese rail network (for every new shinkansen mile, there are at least 2 miles of closed old track), this local capacity will have to decrease or expand overseas without moving the factories.

 

Anyway, what was the foreign made problem with the 500 series? The only one i can think about is the tubular shape which is not as space efficient as the ones more closely following the loading gauge.

[Mudkip Orange]

Does contraction in the number of route-miles neccessarily spell a reduction in fleet size though? A rural line that runs a DMU on 90-minute headways is needs a lot fewer vehicles to maintain full coverage than an urban line running 190 seconds..

[kvp]

Does contraction in the number of route-miles neccessarily spell a reduction in fleet size though? A rural line that runs a DMU on 90-minute headways is needs a lot fewer vehicles to maintain full coverage than an urban line running 190 seconds..

Since the urban lines are running around their capacity and rural lines are shrinking both in size and number of train/cars, the answer is yes. The yamanote line runs 11 car trains, in the 1960-ies it run with 10 car trains. Most rural lines ran with 3-5 car dmu-s, while now run with 1-2 car dmu-s or don't run at all. Many cross country lines that were served by 6-10 car emu-s or locomotive hauled trains are now served by 1-2 car dmu-s with much larger headways. While shinkansen passenger numbers are constant, overall non commuting passenger numbers are shrinking, because japanese people use cars and buses. The reason is that the old cheap crosscountry 'slow' trains are discontinued, shinkansen is expensive and they don't have as many stops as the old trains, so most shinkansen travels start and end with a bus or car trip. In this case, people think they might as well go all the with road transport only, especially if it's much cheaper. And then we didn't even take account of the number of tram systems closed since ww2, that got replaced by buses. The fact, that a fast shinkansen train that can do a roundtrip in 4 hours can replace many slow trains that took 24 hours to do a full roundtrip. (actually only this results in a fleet size reduction of around 6 times, if we assume the headways and the number of passengers per day are the same for both) While i do think that shinkansen are more efficient for mass transport between two large cities, but a very large portion of the travelers want to go from/to smaller places and would like to pay less than the cost of road based transport.

[Sacto1985]

I wonder could Niigata Transys restart KiHa 120 production. Maybe a cold-weather version of the KiHa 120 is what's really needed in northern Tōhoku....

[Guest ___]

I don't know that story, what is it about the 500 series?

 

The 500's were I beleived designed by Alexander Neumeister who also did the ICE and some other HSE trains. If I recall, due to the design there were mechanical access issues or some sort of engineering issue that really did not go over well with the JR guys. While the 500's were built by Japanese companies, I thought the design and some of the engineering are German.

 

I don't recall anymore. In the past year, I've become an audiophile, so most of my Japanese train stuff in my head has been replaced by specs on Audio-Technica headphones and Miku (volcoloid) stuff.

[westfalen]

That would explain why the 500's look so unlike any other Shinkansen.

[cteno4]

Origional 500 design concept was by jr west engineer Eiji Nakatsu, its a kingfisher profile. Biomimicry in action!

 

Jeff

Edited June 28, 2014 by cteno4