Skip to main content

Bye Kyoto. Hello Yamagata. Another train day -1

Today, September 2, we said goodbye to Kyoto. We saw a lot, but there’s still more left unexplored. Good reason to return. 😉

Our agenda: traveling by train north and east to a ryokan near Mt. Zao. A ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn. We took two trains to Yamagata, the closest station to Mt. Zao. This was the third and fourth ride on the Shinkansen.

The adventure started when we grabbed the Nozomi Shinkansen in Kyoto, destined for Tokyo. This train ran on the Tokaido line, the first bullet train line in Japan.

Our train. Nozomi 306, departing Kyoto at 8:36 AM 

We got seats in the green car. That’s first class. Very nice. The Shinkansen provides free Wi-Fi. It’s good quality.

Screenshot from connecting to the train wi-fi. The service was good, not great.

As luck would have it, our seats were on the left side of the car, as we headed toward Tokyo.  That meant we would get a view of Japan’s famous Mt. Fujiyama. According to Wikipedia, Mt. Fuji is one of Japan’s three sacred mountains. It is also the tallest peak in the country and is still an active volcano. The classic view of Fuji is with a cap of snow on it. It was all gone when we zoomed by. It was a different view than the one typically shown in art and postcards. It was immediately identifiable, without any external help. 

A unique view of Mt. Fuji. No clouds obscuring the peak and the peak is devoid of snow. Those are rice fields in the foreground. 

The Tokaido line traverses the most densely populated area of Japan. Hence we saw a lot of rail activity. Our Nozomi runs on the fastest schedule between Kyoto and Tokyo. It made only four stops after departing Kyoto: Nagoya, Shin-Yokohama, Shinagawa and Tokyo. Here are some pictures of rail action I took from the train.






Sorry for the quality. I’m shooting out the window. The iPhone does a great job of capturing action.

Having passed Mt. Fuji, the next stop was Yokohama. We were approaching Tokyo. Then Shinagawa and terminating in Tokyo. 

Between Shinagawa (which is in the Tokyo area) and Tokyo station, we paralleled the JR East lines, which included the Yamanote Line. Its a 21.4-mile, 30-station double-track line encircling the central core of Tokyo. This was my first time seeing this important Tokyo rail line it in the flesh, not on YouTube. The typical train is 11 cars long and they run on two-minute headways.  

Two Yamanote line trains meet in Tokyo. Japanese trains run on the left -- similar to the UK. The train closest to us is passing heading left. The train farthest away is heading to the right. 

In a short time we reached Tokyo station. I heard that the Shinkansen trains are cleaned thoroughly and quickly. This was the practice even before COVID. Sure enough, as we exited a pink-clad group of cleaners were waiting to get on the train and get it ready for the next trip back toward Osaka.

We were hungry and wanted to get a quick meal before our next train, Tsubasa 137. That was set to leave in an hour. We descended into the sea of humanity that is Tokyo. 

Once off the platform, we had a few moments of confusion getting our bearings and figuring out where to get on the next train. As we discovered, we had to go through another set of fare gates. On our way, we passed an organic food sandwich shop. They had some nice looking egg salad sandwiches, so we stopped.  


Lunch at the Tokyo station.


Next blog: getting from Tokyo to Yamagata on a train with two sections. 

                                                       # # #


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adventures in T-trak: Second Draft of planning scenery for an urban module

Whoops. Reviewing the T-trak module something didn't look quite right.  The Tokyo Metro entrance was indicated on the first scenic plan draft. However, it was not the correct size. A few quick calculations gave the proper dimensions. Turns out it was bigger than expected. That meant the plan had to be revised and re-measured. (See the new draft below.) The pencil lines are darker and should be easier to see.  Adding the properly sized entrance, shifted the side street over to the right. It also required a wider sidewalk on the side street.  The website  http://www.sumidacrossing.org/  is a great resource for Japanese trains, prototype and model. That site supplied road and sidewalk dimensions. The road will be two lanes, with a parking lane on the side closest to the buildings.  So far, so good. The plan is starting to come together. The lesson: mistakes can happen. I'll do my best to try to fix them. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Adventures in T-Trak: Laying track

Laying track on my new T-Trak module was not a complicated job. Still, the process hit a minor snag, providing a learning experience. My friend, Steven Cox is the owner of precisionmodelrailroad.com/ . His new firm builds laser-cut model railroad benchwork parts. The company offers helix parts, straight benchwork sections and T-Trak modules. The T-Trak modules are an early product used to test the concept. T-Trak is a modular system that uses Kato N-scale Unitrack. The idea is that if you have limited space its possible to get modeling and participate in the hobby. The T-Trak concept is young, born in 2000. It has international interest. In part, that’s due to the partnership between the T-Trak standards group and Kato. Steven sent me a pre-production T-Trak kit. It assembled into a 12-inch by 12-inch box. I’m not going to post a blog about building that kit because the current kit design is different. It took me a couple of hours to build the module. Most of the time was waiting for...
Post a Comment
Read more

Learning how to hand lay track in N scale -1

The N-scale Japanese commuter trains I'm modeling are 1:150 scale.  U.S. prototype N scale is 1:160. The Japanese commuter trains are a slightly larger scale because, with the exception of the Shinkansen (bullet train), most heavy rail Japanese trains run on narrow gauge (1067 mm, or 3-foot, 6-inch) track.  In the miniature world of Japanese commuter trains, 9 mm N scale track is used. As I found out at the Pacific Coast Region convention this weekend, the track is not exact. Oh, well. (Sigh!) The Takadanobaba in Alameda is envisioned as a shelf layout with roughly six square feet of scenic area. There will be a high ratio of railroad to other scenic features.  For that reason, the raised right of way will be the layout's dominant feature. It needs to be properly represented.  When I first cooked up this layout concept, Atlas Code 55 flex track was considered. That's what I have on hand. But, the prototype track needed to be studied. In the selected era, the second ...
Post a Comment
Read more