JR West: new station at Kyoto Railway Museum in 2019

[miyakoji]

This is over 2 weeks old now, but I noticed this article about a new station to be built on the San'in/Sagano Line between Kyoto and Tambaguchi. Expected completion is spring 2019. It will be built where the line crosses Shichijo-dori (7th avenue, street, etc) in the Kankiji neighborhood of Shimogyo Ward, 1.7km from Kyoto Station, and only 0.8km from Tambaguchi. It seems like its specific purpose is serving the new Kyoto Railway Museum, although that will open spring 2016. It'll be a side platform station with 2 elevators and 4 escalators. Cost is expected to be about 4.9 billion yen; by today's exchange rate, that's about 52.8 million AUD, 41.2 million USD, or 26.7 million GBP.

 

http://response.jp/article/2015/02/02/243204.html

[katoftw]

It is a good idea. From the museum, all stations were 1.1+km from it, so it services the museum nicely. But also the surrounding area is realisticly service by bus to Kyoto. So by adding a station in this location, they are potentially increasing some patrons/customers by stealing some from the bus company.

[miyakoji]

Three and a half years later, I happened upon a bit of news regarding this station.  Its name has been set as Umekōji-Kyōtonishi (romanization from Japanese Wikipedia) and it's still on track (ahem) to open in spring of next year.

 

In this blog post (http://building-pc.cocolog-nifty.com/map/2018/08/20180731-7c42.html) from August 3 2018 there are some ground level pictures of the construction and a little info about its 4.9 billion yen price tag, about 43.1 million US dollars by the current exchange rate.  JR West is apparently paying 1.9 billion yen (38.78%), while Kyoto City and the Japanese government are each paying 1.5 billion yen (30.61%).

 

Lastly, in the video below by ato5kgyasetaito (Sonobe to Kyoto on a 221 series), you can see its progress as of September 24 2018 around the 33:25 mark.  This is just about the point on the line where the San'in Connector Line merged.  It was formally decommissioned February 28 2016, although freight service ended in April 2006.  Momiji-go (maple leaf service) seasonal rapids used the line until 1998, carrying passengers from as far south as Wakayama and continuing on to Sonobe.

 

 

[Sacto1985]

An interesting little off-topic tidbit: it's a tad hard to hear in the video miyakoji referenced, but JR West has begun to implement bilingual (Japanese/English) announcements on their commuter trains. Indeed, if you listen to videos posted on YouTube in the past few months, you can clearly hear the bilingual announcements on the Special Rapid trains in the Osaka area.

[katoftw]

In 2014 they had bi lingual.  At least on the 221/223/225s I was on.

Edited October 6, 2018 by katoftw

[katoftw]

Station up and running since March 16th