Port of Chiba

Just in case you thought that all trains in Japan travel at 300 km.p.h. here's something a bit different.

In the 1960's there were huge landfill schemes in progress around the shores of Tokyo Bay and on the esat side nearly eighty square kilometres of new land were created along the Chiba Prefecture shore. Nearer Tokyo a lot of this land went for housing and commerce with new centres like Makuhari and Inage Kaigan. But down here to the south of Chiba and in Ichihara the development was industrial - steel works, oil refineries and the like.

This big new industrial area and a container terminal are linked to the rest of the Japanese rail system by a three mile branch line from the JR Uchibo Line at Soga.

You would have to really search to find this track as it weaves behind some new housing estates and under the coast highway but I did aome fieldwork in the area during the winter. Here's photo that I took of one of the Port Authority Bo-Bo's back in snowy January ...

- Iain

West Coast Mainline UK

My studio overlooks the West Coast Line as it heads north from Lancaster station on its way to Glasgow. Just byond my window is the River Lune over which the line crosses. About every hour or so the Virgin Pendolino electric trains purr past on their way to and from London. in between are Virgin's other trains, the Cross Country diesels which do not purr but roar like a lion with laryngitis.
Evenings is when things get busy. Britain's economy on the move.Heavy freight trains thunder by at three to four minute intervals. They must have got the spacing well sorted. Containers on flatbeds and these very heavy bulk carriers. One them stopped on the bridge once and I got a chance to read the spec on the trucks. 80 tons capacity plus 20 tons tare. Now with twenty of these trucks in tow thats a lot of heavy metal. These are usually hauled by single electric locos. All of which are named after German musicians, Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler and so on.
I should be able to get a few pictures posted in due course. Being where I am gives me no excuse. Now, where did I put that camera?

- Norman

Sneak peek at 'shinks'

I go through Tokyo station once or twice a month. It's a fearsomely big place and you wouldn't want to be lost there during the rush hour - actually there are JR platforms on five separate levels.

Often I have to change from the Sobu Line arriving from Chiba for the old Tokaido line to catch a train down to Kawasaki. The old Tokaido 'down' platform is just across from the platform for the shinkansen trains headed north to Tohoku so you can get a good look at the trains parked up there.

This is a very odd bit of railway. At Tokyo the shinkansen trains for the north and the west of Japan pull into platforms next to each other. They are the same (standard) gauge but there's no track connection between them because the electic supply is quite different.

Here is a train bound for the north. It is in two halves which will be uncoupled at Morioka. The front half will then head through the mountains west to Akita, and the rear half will head north towards Aomori with passengers for Hokkaido.

- Iain

NEX

"Railway Roundabout". If you were a juvenile railway buff like I was in the 1950's you won't need to be told that this was the title of the 'tain-spotters' programme on BBC TV. Yes, incredibly for a short time the Beeb actually ran a programme for train spotters back then, lots of grainy 405-line TV in black and white featuring sooty steam locomotives.

This blog "Railway Roundabout" is also for fun too. I'll regularly add items and pictures here not just about my current travels around JR (Japan Railways) but also on some of the many private Japanese Railways. I'll also include trips to linesides in other parts of the world and sometimes photographs of the railways of my childhood in North East England. If you have anything that you would like to add yourself please email it to me at iain(at)littlehouseinthepaddy(dot)net

I was wondering what to write about in this first entry of "Railway Roundabout" but I guess it has to be 'NEX' - the 'Narita Express'. If you ever come to Japan and land at Tokyo's international airport at Narita this will probably be the frist Japanese train you will come across. I remember the excitement I felt one sticky Sunday morning in June 1997 when Julia and I got our 'JR Passes' in a jet-lagged haze after the flight from Manchester and made our way onto the platform at Terminal 1 where one of these sleek silver black and red air-conditioned trains was waiting to speed us along the Sobuhonsen into the capital.

The Narita Express runs from the airport into Tokyo's main station but then splits with various sections heading for Shinagawa, Shinjuku, Omiya and Yokohama. As we watched the countryside of Shimosa flying by en route to Chiba - with so many farmers tending their growing rice -it all seemed very exotic. And yet just nine years after it's a journey which has become deeply familiar for me.

Here in this picture are two NEX units passing at Shinagawa a couple of Sundays ago. What a great place for young trainspotters!

- Iain