New JR West 227 Series for Hiroshima area

[miyakoji]

Well, here it is.  Looks just like the second iteration of the 521 series operated in the Hokuriku region, but with different color accents.  The red represents Itsukushima Shrine's gate, as well as the fall foliage of maple trees, and, if I understand this correctly, it's the color of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp baseball team. First I thought this meant the actual fish, but apparently not.

 

This will run on DC only.  They expect to have 43 cars in service this year, and a total of 276 in service by 2018, in 64 3-car formations and 42 2-car formations. They'll be used on the Sanyo, Kure, and Kabe lines. Hmmm, I wonder how the new Osaka Loop Line rolling stock is coming along...

 

I think this design is quite nice, although those things meant to stop people falling between the cars look a little funny on the ends.

 

http://railf.jp/news/2014/06/20/130000.html

Edited June 21, 2014 by miyakoji

[Densha]

Is this farewell 113 and 115 series?? :crybaby2:

[miyakoji]

I don't know the details of the fleet in that area, but 276 cars seems like enough to replace a whole lot of 113s, 115s, and 105s. The windshields look nice and big, this should provide some opportunities for videographers to make lots of new, clear zenmen tenbou videos on the area's lines . I should have written above, although it looks like the latest 521s, the article says it's based on the 225. With the DC-only drive, I guess that makes sense.

 

Also, after referring to Wikipedia, I think it's actually the third generation of the 521 series that this resembles. That whole situation has always confused me, I thought they should have been 523 series, or at least have a dramatically different subseries number...

[JR 500系]

 

Kinda like look... a horse.

 

The sides look like some blocker shields or something... Like those one would place on the horse to make it continue running straight!

 

Other than those, looks strangely familiar... can't point my finger to though...

[Sacto1985]

And so, the long-awaited replacement for the aging 113/115 EMU's in JR West service has been officially unveiled. Better start taking pictures of 115's west of Himeji before they're all gone by 2018.

 

Question: who's going to build the trainsets, KHI or Kinki Sharyo? (Both companies built the 225's used in the Keihanshin region.)

 

EDIT: Here are the pictures of the new trainset:

 

Three-car exterior view

 

 

Interior view:

 

Edited June 21, 2014 by Sacto1985

[miyakoji]

Good question about the builder. I had to look twice at that statement about a few dozen being in service this year. It's already the middle of June. I'd guess both manufacturers will be building these.

[ToniBabelony]

Aside from the fugly side plates on the front, I like the design and colour scheme. Very tasteful.

[cteno4]

Front plates look like sole sort of air scoop. Interesting.

 

Jeff

[westfalen]

The side plates at the front may mean these trains won't follow the JR West practice of having the headlights of intermediate cabs left on to illuminate the gap.

Edited June 21, 2014 by westfalen

[miyakoji]

Are there really that many incidents where people fall off the platform between cars? Even in the States I don't hear about it that much, although the local transportation authority's subway rolling stock does have these devices. Maybe that's why. Hmmm.  :icon_scratch:

[bikkuri bahn]

I don't know if it occurs often, but to me it seems there is more accommodation for the vision impaired in Japan, such as crosswalks with sound warnings, rubber tiles on sidewalks, gap warnings at stairwells etc.  This may be part of that. The fact that these devices are installed on the more visible driving ends is a reflection of the operational realities of JR West, where trainsets have to be flexible in terms of length given the diversity in traffic on JR West lines, rather than the more fixed formation philosophy in the Kanto region.

[bikkuri bahn]

Good question about the builder. I had to look twice at that statement about a few dozen being in service this year. It's already the middle of June. I'd guess both manufacturers will be building these.

I reckon the primary builder will be Kinki Sharyo.  They have a good relationship with JR West, not to the extent of say, Nissya and JR Tokai or J-TREC and JR East, but JR West certainly has often turned to the Osaka maker for new rolling stock recently. There may be issues of production capacity- KHI may be harboring a good backlog of orders from both domestic and foreign customers, as may well Hitachi Kasado- surmising here, of course.

Edited June 21, 2014 by bikkuri bahn

[katoftw]

The sides and the white remind me of a 817 series. And the front is very similar to various other series.

[kvp]

These trains look nice. The side plates are interesting, i hope there will be a way to remove or retract them. They have more than one use tough, for example they were installed on alstom metro cars in hungary to stop kids from riding between the cars. The classic solution of using chains would be a bit nicer on the look of the train, but this is the modern way. At least the paint is cool. Is there any information about the engineering side? I can only see that one of the cab cars has the pantograph.

[katoftw]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/521_series

[kvp]

Thanks. I've also found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/227_series

So the blinders are fixed and the trains will either be in kumoha-moha-kuha or in kumoha-saha-kuha formation and in service will be run in consists up to 8 cars (3+3+2 or 3+2+3).

[Densha]

Will the 227 series actually replace ALL left JR West JNR-EMU's? Or just on a few lines?

[Sacto1985]

Will the 227 series actually replace ALL left JR West JNR-EMU's? Or just on a few lines?

 

My guess: the 227 Series EMU will in one fell swoop replace all the 113/115's now running between Shimonoseki and Himeji. It's possible we'll see them in two-car sets running east of Okayama east on the San'yō Main Line to Himeji and east on the Akō Line to Banshū-Akō. And possibly the Hakubi Line from Kurashiki to Yonago and the San'in Main Line from Hōki-Daisen to Nishi-Izumo.

 

By the way, JR Central is linked with Nippon Sharyo and JR East is linked with J-TREC because both of these railroad car builders are owned by the railroad companies respectively. Kinki Sharyo is actually a part of the Kintetsu Corporation.

Edited June 21, 2014 by Sacto1985

[bikkuri bahn]

More accurately, Kinki Sharyo is part of the Kintetsu group, with Kintetsu owning 44%.  JR West owns 5% of Kinki Sharyo, and in 2012 formed a business alliance* with the maker, and the president of Kinki Sharyo is an ex-JR West executive.

 

*the aims being to advance rolling stock technology, speed up the development process of rolling stock, and increase cost performance of same.

[miyakoji]

Will the 227 series actually replace ALL left JR West JNR-EMU's? Or just on a few lines?

 

My guess: the 227 Series EMU will in one fell swoop replace all the 113/115's now running between Shimonoseki and Himeji. It's possible we'll see them in two-car sets running east of Okayama east on the San'yō Main Line to Himeji and east on the Akō Line to Banshū-Akō. And possibly the Hakubi Line from Kurashiki to Yonago and the San'in Main Line from Hōki-Daisen to Nishi-Izumo.

 

By the way, JR Central is linked with Nippon Sharyo and JR East is linked with J-TREC because both of these railroad car builders are owned by the railroad companies respectively. Kinki Sharyo is actually a part of the Kintetsu Corporation.

 

The article specifically mentions the Hiroshima area, and the Sanyo, Kure, and Kabe lines.  When I lived in Okayama I would see consists in the Seto Uchi livery, which is different than the cafe au lait livery on trains from Okayama depot.  So, I assume some of these trains will find their way as far east as Okayama.  But, I don't understand this article to mean that these trains will be assigned in large quantities to Okayama, or that we'll see them on the electrified lines in the area, other than the Sanyo line from Okayama west.  Time will tell.

 

More accurately, Kinki Sharyo is part of the Kintetsu group, with Kintetsu owning 44%.  JR West owns 5% of Kinki Sharyo, and in 2012 formed a business alliance* with the maker, and the president of Kinki Sharyo is an ex-JR West executive.

 

*the aims being to advance rolling stock technology, speed up the development process of rolling stock, and increase cost performance of same.

Once the builder has the tooling configured, how many cars do you think they can produce per week?  DAJF already has an English Wikipedia page up, indicating that they'll be in service from Spring of next year.  Seems more likely, but I understand 227系は2014（平成26）年度に43両が投入 from the Tetsudou Fan article to mean at least manufactured, if not in service, this year.

[Sacto1985]

Here's my personal guess on the initial routes for the new 227's:

 

San'yō Main Line: Tokuyama (western terminus) to Fukuyama (eastern terminus)

Kabe Line: Hiroshima to Kōdo Station (new terminus of line)

Kure LIne: Kaitachi to Mihara (full line service)

 

When more trainsets arrive, the new trainset service will expand to:

 

San'yō Main LIne: Tokuyama west to Shimonoseki and Fukuyama east to Himeji (on San'yō Main Line) or Banshū-Akō (on Akō Line)

Hakubi Line: Kurashiki (train starts from Okayama) to Yonago (on San'in Main Line)

San'in Main Line: Yonago to Nishi-Izumo

 

Speaking of the old 115's, it now appears the last stand of the 113/115 Series EMU will be on the Chūō Main Line between Takao and Shiojiri, the JR West Kusatsu Line and the Shinano Railway, now that JR East will soon start phasing in the E129 Series EMU in the Niigata area.

[Densha]

I found this pic of a Kintetsu train having the same sort of protection for passengers falling of the platforms: https://www.flickr.com/photos/8938550@N03/14515666063/

[kvp]

All modern trains have something similar, like the yamanote line e231-s:

 

What is unusual is to have a fixed board on the front of the train. Of course, most New York subay cars had something similar, but foldable (to look less silly):

 

 

And i like the old hooks and chains metod, since it doesn't disturb the train's look too much:

(two on one side, one on the other, but nobody really bothers to connect them anymore since it's too much work during shunting)

 

Why we start to see these boards on the front of japanese trains might be that the trains are meant to be used in consists and will be connected and disconnected multiple times a day but they have a rounded front, so the gap between cars is much larger than for a 103 series or a 113 series. On the other hand, even some 103 series cars got retrofitted with the boards:

[katoftw]

Is it really a big problem that these safety measures need to be in place? OR are some networks/platforms so overcrowded, that people do actually fall between the cars?

Edited June 24, 2014 by katoftw

[Densha]

I just discovered something. The 521 series resembles the 227 series closely right? So I took a look at the wikipedia page of the 521 and noticed that the 2nd subseries already is fitted with those 'falling preventing measures' and that the 3rd and 4th subseries looks almost identical to the 227 series.

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR%E8%A5%BF%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC521%E7%B3%BB%E9%9B%BB%E8%BB%8A#2.E6.AC.A1.E8.BB.8A

 

Pics with old front: http://rail.hobidas.com/rmn/archives/2013/01/jr521g06.html

Pics with new front: http://rail.hobidas.com/rmn/archives/2014/03/jr5213j.html