Time for a new Keikyu release - here's the 2000 Series!
Already available on my website!
The 2000 Series was introduced by Keikyu in the early 1980s to replace the older 600 Series on skip-stop services, especially Limited Expresses, the company's "poster" trains.
At the time, Keikyu's commuter fleet was relatively adequate, despite not being entirely modern, consisting mostly of 1000 and 700 Series built between the early 1960s and the late 1970s, along with a small minority of 800 Series trains, Keikyu's lastest, introduced in 1978, as well as a minor, but still sizeable, fleet of 500 Series trains dating from the early 1950s.
The top-of-the-line express services was instead where the problem was, as these were entirely assigned to the ageing 600 Series - having been manufactured between 1956 and 1958, by the early 1980s, almost all sets were 25 years old, and many were inching close to 30. Most importantly, this primarily affected the interior design of these trains, wich was also equally 30 years old, and with a relative, but notable, lack of confort (depsite the 1970s retrofitting of of air-conditioning), something that simply didn't cut for the supposedly "top" train of a major railway company.
As such, hastly Keikyu embarked in the design of a new train dedicated to rapid and express services.
For the new trains, the choice for the "technical equipment" was the easiest, as evrything was lifted "straight out" of the local services' 800 Series, altough adapted for a maximium design speed of 130Km/h (compared to the 800s' 100Km/h). This included essentially evrything: traction motors, the shunt-chopper traction control system, square pantographs and other minor equipment. Even the same cab style was used, with it's right-side one-hand master controller. The only notable difference being instead the air conditioning unit, with Keikyu opting for a single, centralized-type conditioner for evry coach (unlike the 800s' four smaller conditioners per car), better suited to the intended two-doors limited express design.
Speaking of exterior design, almost nothing was carried over from the 600 Series, besides the basic and mandatory "options" - one being the 18m-long bodyshell dictated by the loading gauge, and the two-doors-per-car arrangment, carried as a design "habit" for commuter-derived limited express trains in almost all major private railways and beyond.
Indeed, Keikyu shed almost all of it's own "design canons" that had been staunchely using since the 1920s: single top-mounted headlight, single-leaf doors and vertical rounded fronts. The new trains fetaured an angular and aereodynamic front, well suited for skip-stop services, conventional two-leaf doors and an equally conventional pair of headlight below the cab window.
This design choice was deliberate, as Keikyu wanted the new trains to stand out among it's relatively uniform fleet, as well as to convey a more "modern" image for the company, compared to the rather old-fashoned fittings and fetaures of the rest of it's fleet (especially the single-leaf doors, wich the vast majority of railway companies around Tokyo had given up two decades earlier!).
Extra care was rightly given to the interiors, with single seats in pairs (unlike the 600's two-seater sofas) arranged "group-style", meaning with the left half side of the car facing the center, and likewise to the right.
Plans to adpot convertible seating, as many other major private railways were doing at the time, were made, but these had to be rescined early on in the plan as they would've added complexity, weightas well as cost and time to properly design and implement.
However, one more distinctive fetaure was added, with the four seats for each door being fitted on their backs with foldable strapountin-like seating, wich could be opened and closed by the conductor (using a switch in the driver's cab) depending on necessity. The interior paneling was also deliberately designed with warm colors - faint oranges and browns - to convey a sense of "homeliness"; for the same reason, the flooring was also given a cork-like texture.
Classified as the "2000 Series" - another choice to make these trains stand out (as the rest of the fleet was classified with a three-digit numbering scheme), a first set of eight cars, 2011F, was delivered in December 1982, having been manufactured jointly by Kawasaki Heavy Industries (one half) and Tokyu Car Corporation (the other half), Keikyu's long-time rolling stock suppliers.
After some testing, the new 2000 Series entered revenue services to a resounding success on express and limited express services to Uraga and Misakiguchi.
However, it took until 1984 for additional sets to be delivered, with 8-car sets 2021F (wholly built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries) and 2031F (wholly built by Tokyu Car Corporation) entering service in May. With the start of regular deliveries, the replacement of the old 600 Series officially began in the same year.
One more 8-car set (2041F built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries) and two 4-car sets (2411F and 2421F built by Tokyu Car Corporation) were delivered between February and March 1985, with the four car sets being introduced with the idea of them being able to both run as a "normal" 8-car set (by combining two sets) as well as to work as "attached formations" - bringing normal 8-car sets to twelve cars during morning and evening rush hours.
With the fleet now consisting of four 8-car sets, plus one (the two 4-car sets formed togheter), the older 600 Series trains were replaced from the top limited express services and reassigned to express and rapid services only, with eight of the older cars being withdrawn and scrapped altogheter.
A further two 8-car sets (2051F built by Kawasaki and 2061F built by Tokyu) and two 4-car sets (2431F built by Tokyu and 2441F built by Kawasaki) were delivered exactly one year later, between February and March 1986. With their arrival, the 2000 Series became large enough to fully replace the last remaining 600 Series sets, wich were promptly withdrawn from all services in March and scrapped (except for three cars, sold to the Takamatsu-Kotohira Railway in Shikoku and one cab car preserved in a sports park near Jimmuji station on the Keikyu Zushi Line).
Two final, additional, 4-car sets were delivered in June 1987, well after the retirement of the 600 Series, to enlarge the 2000 Series' fleet as well as to increase capacity, these being sets 2451F built by Kawasaki and 2461F built by Tokyu.
Thus, by summer 1987, the 2000 Series' fleet consisted of a total of six eight-car sets (2011F to 2061F) and six four-car sets (2411F to 2461F), able to be formed as six twelve-car sets during rush hours (by conbining one four-car set and one eight-car set) or as a grand total of nine eight-car sets (by combining the four-car sets togheter).
The life of the 2000 Series would remain relatively uneventful for the following decade, with the only main modification being the adaptation of the whole fleet for the new maximium speed of 120Km/h - the 2000 Series had originally been designed for 130Km/h, but never attained said speed, and had remained limited to 110Km/h for it's whole career up to that point.
However, the intensive usage on all skip-stop services, from rapid to limited expresses, quickly took a toll on the 2000 Series' bodyshell, and by the mid-1990s, barely 10 years after the introduction of the bulk of the fleet, plans for a replacement of the 2000 Series already began to be drawn up.
The result of these was the introduction of the 2100 Series in 1998, destined to be Keikyu's "image train", in the same vein (and much more) as the 2000 Series had been until then. Derived from the "New" 600 Series, wich Keikyu had introduced in 1996 for rapid trough-services with the Toei Asakusa Line, the 2100 Series entered service on the 28th of March 1998, quickly replacing the 2000 Series sets on a one-by-one basis.
However, as most of the sets were between 15 and 10 years old, Keikyu opted not to scrap the fleet, but to cascade it on local services to replace the oldest 1000 and 700 Series sets still in service, dating from the latter half of the 1960s.
[continues in following post]
