Prototype Japanese Steam

I usually make one business trip a year to Tokyo and I have had a few holidays too but this is the first time I have seen Steam in Japan.
This is the Oigawa Railway, a small private railway about 150 miles south west of Tokyo its about 45 minutes on the bullet train to Shizuoka, you can then take a local train to Kanaya or as my Japanese colleague did hire a car in Shizuoka and drive to Kanaya although I have no idea why we didn't take the train.

They have a few different locos and run 1 steam hauled train a day to the end of the line and back leaving at 11:52 and returning from the end of the line at Senzu at 14:52, you get a good 90 minutes there to have lunch or to take the diesel powered train to the very end of the line and come back again. We opted for lunch and a beer.

This is what hauled us the hill







Unfortunately the loco wasn't in a good position to photograph it at Kanaya and everyone was trying to get themselves in a photo of it.

It is a very picturesque part of Japan





Thats tea in the above picture.

When we got to Senzu I managed a better picture



We went off for lunch but when we got back we found that there had been a bit of help up the hill



The line is electrified at 1500 volts DC and this old electric loco had been on the back. There are Ransome and Rapier turntables at both ends of the line, so the steam loco had been turned and put on the front the right way round.

When we got back to Kanaya there was tank loco in steam too.





And another old electric loco



A very pleasant day out and a smooth journey back to Tokyo.

Richard

Richard,

Very interesting. Never have I seen such a bettered tender, or loco come to that. I hope that they keep the important parts in better condition!
But perhaps no wonder that it needed some help. Nice to see how steam is preserved in other parts of the world.

Paul.

Locomodels said:

Richard,

Very interesting. Never have I seen such a bettered tender, or loco come to that. I hope that they keep the important parts in better condition!
But perhaps no wonder that it needed some help. Nice to see how steam is preserved in other parts of the world.

Paul.

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It's only platework and that's presumably original, going on the state of it. People seem to set a lot of store by that (there was quite a bit of fuss about the bufferbeam-height 'ding' picked up by the Canadian A4, I remember: no meaningful damage was found as far as I'm aware), but fundamentally, it's cosmetic. I imagine that the electric insurance - both pans dropped I note - was there for the same reason that steam workings generally have a 47 attached over here. For myself, I'm quite happy to see steam locos looking as though they work for a living rather than polished up to the nth degree.

Adam

Adam

The pan went up shortly before we departed, it was definitely an insurance loco, although it's largely down hill on the way back.

This isn't a preserved railway in the UK sense, it is a private railway in Japan , there are probably over a 100 in total, it just happens to operate steam train most days mixed in with the normal electric service. This is the EMU departing about 10 minutes before we did.

Richard

AJC said:

For myself, I'm quite happy to see steam locos looking as though they work for a living rather than polished up to the nth degree.

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Col

Thanks Richard. I wonder if it was primarily there for braking purposes then? The Leighton Buzzard Light Railway seems to do this on many of their steam-hauled services. All very interesting.

Adam

Hi Richard,
Thanks for these lovely photos, I think both the steam locos and the electric are very pretty little machines. If my memory serves, I think N gauge models may have been produced of both types of steam loco, maybe both by Kato?
Lucky you getting to ride that train! It's very nice to see some of Japan that isn't all urban jungle too.
Cheers,
John.

The steam locomotives are very Teutonic in appearance.

And if that's some of the loco crew climbing over the engine they're remarkably clean.

Very interesting photos Richard, thanks for showing them. I know very little about Japanese steam - do you know if those locos were domestically manufactured or were they imported, as I too thought like Yorkshire Dave that they have a very European look...

Wikipedia says that both these locomotives were designed and built by Japanese Government Railways in the 1930s.

John

allegheny1600 said:

Hi Richard,
Thanks for these lovely photos, I think both the steam locos and the electric are very pretty little machines. If my memory serves, I think N gauge models may have been produced of both types of steam loco, maybe both by Kato?
Lucky you getting to ride that train! It's very nice to see some of Japan that isn't all urban jungle too.
Cheers,
John.

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John is quite right - Kato did produce some team outline N gauge models , certainly of the tender loco and I be;ieve the tank too. I had the tender loco in my N gauge days (when I was young and dextrous and could deal with the tiny stuff ),and as I recall it was a super runner that would pull the proverbial house down.

My grateful thanks for a very interesting series of photographs.

Roger.

Oz7mm said:

Wikipedia says that both these locomotives were designed and built by Japanese Government Railways in the 1930s.

John

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Interesting, thanks John; I didn't think of Wiki for this, should have done!

Perhaps the apparent European look was just a question of design influence then.