Tsurumi, Hama-Kawasaki and Shitte Stations West of Tokyo

[gmat]

After my lessons near Omori Station on Saturday, I decided to visit Tsurumi Station on the Keihin-Tohoku Line. On one side you have the Yokosuka and the Shonan-Shinjuku lines traffic and on the other side of the platform, you have the Tokaido Line traffic and further away, you have the Tokaido Freight Line tracks. I stayed at the west end of the platform. I watched for the blinking signal lights to tell me when trains were coming from the west. You can usually see traffic coming from the east. The freight traffic could easily be spotted coming from the west, but several freight trains coming from the east caught me by surprise. One was a rare (for me) EH200-15 and EF210-?09 combo pulling a line of tank cars. Often the Keihin-Tohoku trains would mask the other traffic.

After about an hour, I went upstairs to the Tsurumi Line station and rode the train to Hama-Kawasaki Station. I was so tired that I fell asleep very quickly and woke up after we reached the end, at Hama-Kawasaki Station.  There are two of them, across the street from each other. One serves the Tsurumi Line and the other is the terminus for the Nambu-Branch Line and is next to the Tokaido Freight Branch Line that connects the Tokyo Freight Terminal with the main Tokaido Freight Line and Musashino Freight Line. From the Nambu Line platform, you can shoot the freight trains as they run next to you. Further down the Tsurumi Line, I could see a string of black hopper cars and another string of green tank cars. Next to them I saw DE10-1553, an orange diesel but did not stick around to see where it might go. There are several tracks connecting the Nambu Line with the Tsurumi Line but only one track showed any sign of being used. I believe that the Nambu-Branch Line 205-100s with yellow and green markings use this section to travel from the Branch line to the Trsurumi Line at the start and finish of every day. I believe they park at night with the Tsurumi Line 205-1000s. The Nambu-Branch Line 205-1000 pair must be one of the smallest distinctly marked fleets in Japan. 

I then went to Shitte Station where I could shoot the Nambu Line, Nambu-Branch Line and JRF diesels. There were a few rail fans who were waiting to shoot the Nambu Line 205s with the Kawasaki City 90th Anniversary head mark. I shot two passing through and when I caught the second one heading for Tachikawa, saw another parked  in the siding at Yano. the next Station. Again I fell asleep and missed my stop at Musashi-Mizonokuchi and didn't wake up until eleven stops later. 

 

That's all for now.

 

Grant

[Nick_Burman]

The freight traffic could easily be spotted  Next to them I saw DE10-1553, an orange diesel but did not stick around to see where it might go.

 

 

Grant,

 

That orange unit is a Nihon Tsuun loco, used at the Taiheiyo coal dock.

 

Cheers NB

[miyakoji]

Thanks for the write up, Grant.  I followed this on google maps, quite enjoyable :).  The platform/track configuration at Hama-Kawasaki Station looks very familiar, I think I've been there

 

No doubt you're correct (unfortunately) about the disused track. Rust on the railhead of the ground level tracks isn't visible in the google maps image, but there's elevated single-track line that runs right between the two platforms of the station, it has sections of its track entirely pulled up. Too bad, the operational possibilities of this whole area are pretty interesting.

 

I think you're correct about the 205-1000 series too, I doubt JRE has any other series/subseries, other than maybe maintenance rolling stock, that only has two cars. JR West also has a 205-1000 series, which looks to be unrelated. No post-JNR coordination on this kind of thing?

[gmat]

Thanks, Nick, for the information. I might take the Tsurumi Line to Ogimachi to see what it's like. Miyakoji, I've wondered about that elevated track. When you climb the stairs at the station, you can see that there are some bushes growing on parts of that track. But I couldn't see the tracks itself. I had wondered if anything ran on it. If I had the time on a weekday, I'd get there very early in the morning to shoot the Branch line 205 as it crosses over from the Tsurumi Line. I also think that very early morning might be the best time to shoot freight trains leaving the Tokyo Freight Terminal. 

 

I should post pics. Sorry.

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[miyakoji]

Here's the google aerial view: https://goo.gl/maps/EaIw8

[westfalen]

I did much the same thing as you on June 6th, I posted some photos in my thread of the trip so I won't repost them here.

 

It was pouring rain most of the day so I didn't do much exploring away from the stations though I did go right to the end of the line at Ogimachi to colour it in on my atlas. There look to be a lot of interesting photo locations but you would have to be on foot, I can see myself spending another day down that way if I get fine weather on some future trip.  I have to go back again anyway and try to do the Okawa branch which only has a couple of trains the morning and evening for factory workers.

 

The DE10 did a shunt trip from Hama Kawasaki to the coal dock in a large gap between passenger trains during the middle of the day though there appears to be other trips shown in the freight timetable, maybe they run depending on the amount of traffic on offer.  I didn't get any shots because I stayed at Hama Kawasaki because of the rain.  Another interesting freight movement which I did get passing through Kawasaki Shinmachi is the jet fuel train to and from the USAF fuel depot at Anzen.

 

A good spot to film the almost constant parade of freight trains is Kawasaki Shinmachi station between Hamakawasaki and Shitte, there is a middle platform between the tracks with freights using the outside tracks so you can get shots of freight trains in both directions.  I spent about three hours there in the company of a couple of Japanese railfans.

Edited June 30, 2014 by westfalen

[gmat]

Does anyone know what route the Beitan jet fuel train takes from the Tsurumi Line to the Branch Line? Perhaps it goes past Hama-Kawasaki Station on the Tsurumi Line towards Ogimachi and reverses back to run past the Branch Line Hama-Kawasaki Station. 

 

Westfalen, unless it's a public road area that runs past the tracks, I suspect that you can't easily access the interesting shooting locations going towards Ogimachi. 

 

I had earlier passed by Kawasaki-Shinmachi Station during cherry blossom season and met a rail fan who talked about shooting the trains with the cherry blossoms in the background. It was too late in the day for me to try that. I think you have to leave the station and shoot over the barrier fences while standing on a short ladder or stand. 

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[westfalen]

I assumed the jet fuel train reverses direction as you suggest, as I was at Kawasaki-Shinmachi I didn't see what it did.

 

There are level crossings at Showa and Ogimachi stations where you could get photos of the coal train, I got a shot of a passenger train at Showa. There appears to be a foot bridge over the eastern end of the freight yard between Hama-Kawasaki and Showa where you might be able to get a shot of the DE10 with the coal train but as it was raining I didn't check it out when I was there.  There do appear to be a lot of streets that are within industrial complexes and may not be accesible, as a general rule I go to Google Earth and hold the Street View icon over the map and the public streets highlight in blue, those that the street view camera car hasn't been on I assume to be private roads. If the weather had been good I would have spent more time exploring the streets in the area, it is a different part of Tokyo from the one in the tourist brochures for sure.