Railshuttle
Member
Oh so it is a real standard gauged train. Those must be pretty rare in Japan.
Japan
- Thread starter connyxy
- Start date
Aside from the Shinkansen, standard gauge is also used by Hankyu, Hanshin, Keikyu, Keihan, Keisei, and although not quite standard gauge, Keio also uses trains of similar gauge (4 ft 6 in). Feel free to correct me if I missed any or if any of these is incorrect
Yes, indeed most major private railway (especially in the Kansai Area) run on standard gauge.
The full list (off the top of my mind) is Keikyu, Keisei, Hokuso, Shin-Keisei, Chiba Newtown Railway, Shibayama Railway (and the Chiba Rapid Railway, absorbed by Keisei in the 1990s), the Hakone-Tozan Railway in the Tokyo area, Kintetsu (Osaka, Nagoya, Nara Yamada and Kyoto Lines), Keihan, Hankyu, Hanshin, Nose Electric Railway, Sanyo Railway, Keifuku Railway, Eizan Railway in the Kansai area, Nishitetsu in Kyushu (all lines except the Kaizuka Line) and the Takamatsu-Kotohira Railway in Shikoku.
Subways and Rapid-Transit-like rapid railways using standard gauge are the Toei Asakusa Line, Tokyo Metro Ginza and Marunouchi Lines, Osaka Subway Blue Line, Nagoya Subway Higashiyama, Meijo and Meiko Lines, the whole Osaka Subway network (Midosuji, Tanimachi, Yotsubashi, Chuo, Sennichimae and Sakaisuji Lines, plus the Kita-Osaka-Kyuko Railway and the Kintetsu Keihanna Line), the whole Kyoto Subway network (Karasuma and Tozai Lines) and the Seishin-Yamate Line in Kobe (plus the former Hokushinkyuko Railway). Plus, all the linear-motored subway lines (Sendai Tozai Line, Toei Oedo Line, Yokohama Green Line, Osaka Nagahori-Tsurumi-Ryokuchi Line, Imatosuji Line, the Kaigan Line in Kobe and the Nakanuma Line in Fukuoka).
JR East's Tazawako Line betweem Morioka and Omagari, and the Ou Main Line between Fukushima and Yamagata and between Uzen-Chitose and Shinjo (plus double gauge between Yamagata and Uzen-Chitose) were also converted to 1435mm gauge to allow for the mini-Shinkansen trough-running.
The Hankai Tramway, Hiroshima Tramway, Chikuho Railway, Nagasaki Tramway, Kumamoto Tramway and Kagoshima Tramway are also all standard-gauge.
The full list (off the top of my mind) is Keikyu, Keisei, Hokuso, Shin-Keisei, Chiba Newtown Railway, Shibayama Railway (and the Chiba Rapid Railway, absorbed by Keisei in the 1990s), the Hakone-Tozan Railway in the Tokyo area, Kintetsu (Osaka, Nagoya, Nara Yamada and Kyoto Lines), Keihan, Hankyu, Hanshin, Nose Electric Railway, Sanyo Railway, Keifuku Railway, Eizan Railway in the Kansai area, Nishitetsu in Kyushu (all lines except the Kaizuka Line) and the Takamatsu-Kotohira Railway in Shikoku.
Subways and Rapid-Transit-like rapid railways using standard gauge are the Toei Asakusa Line, Tokyo Metro Ginza and Marunouchi Lines, Osaka Subway Blue Line, Nagoya Subway Higashiyama, Meijo and Meiko Lines, the whole Osaka Subway network (Midosuji, Tanimachi, Yotsubashi, Chuo, Sennichimae and Sakaisuji Lines, plus the Kita-Osaka-Kyuko Railway and the Kintetsu Keihanna Line), the whole Kyoto Subway network (Karasuma and Tozai Lines) and the Seishin-Yamate Line in Kobe (plus the former Hokushinkyuko Railway). Plus, all the linear-motored subway lines (Sendai Tozai Line, Toei Oedo Line, Yokohama Green Line, Osaka Nagahori-Tsurumi-Ryokuchi Line, Imatosuji Line, the Kaigan Line in Kobe and the Nakanuma Line in Fukuoka).
JR East's Tazawako Line betweem Morioka and Omagari, and the Ou Main Line between Fukushima and Yamagata and between Uzen-Chitose and Shinjo (plus double gauge between Yamagata and Uzen-Chitose) were also converted to 1435mm gauge to allow for the mini-Shinkansen trough-running.
The Hankai Tramway, Hiroshima Tramway, Chikuho Railway, Nagasaki Tramway, Kumamoto Tramway and Kagoshima Tramway are also all standard-gauge.
Railshuttle
Member
Wow! I didn't know there were that many standard-gauged lines out there! I wondered if it was because of the population shift or if larger trains could hold more people than smaller narrow-gauged trains? Most of the newer lines are elevated eliminating the tons of level crossings. JR rail system has changed a lot over the years.
No, not at all - it's just that most of the (major private) railway networks use standard gauge because they were "born" as interurban tramways at the turn of the century, and so did not need to connect to the rest of the "national" railway network built to 1067mm gauge. Part of the reason was, since most electric interurban railway equipment was imported from the United States in the early days, building the network to standard gauge to readily "fit" the purchased equipment was slightly cheaper. All tramways using standard gauge did so for the same exact reason.
Some subways have adopted the standard gauge to allow trough-service with railways using standard gauge (as in the case of the Toei Asakusa Line, Kyoto Karasuma Line and the Kobe Seishin-Yamate Line, wich initially planned trough-services with Hankyu), or did so as a matter of established practice (all third-rail powered subways and lines they have trough-services with use the 1435mm gauge as they all fundamentally follow the same standards set by Ginza Line in the 1920s).
Linear-motored subways all use the standard gauge as the reaction plate inbetween the rails wouldn't fit within the narrow 1067mm gauge.
Plus there's fundamentally little gain in capacity to be had by switching to standard gauge - all japanese railways (barred obvious exceptions) all use roughly the same loading gauge, and to change that, the whole infrastructure would need to be rebuilt.
Hi Japan forum members. I was away a bit.
I had a Flight Simulator (Ms2020) Episode and flew a lot lately even Long Haul in Realtime. I flew the Boeing 747-8I (Salty Mod) over to Chicago and flew a lot around in the Chicago Area also did some regional Flights to Milwaukee, Champaingn and Minneapolis. Then flew to Denver with the PDMG 737-800 and flew around in the Coldorado Rocky Mountains and bought another nice payware aircraft (VAN's Aircraft RV8). Then flew back to Chicago and this week I returned to Amsterdam. Anyway that was my Flightsim trip.
all in real time> No time acceleration used.
So now back on trains
I am still working on my route but work will be super slow.
This summer me and my father will buy a new computer System because while my current system Is still perfect it will be not compatible with the Windows 10 end of life (EOL) and while you can buy enhanced security support we thought it was better to go to a new system anyway.
On the plus side this will be a very fast system but on the downside I am not that much looking forward to the upcoming data migration and to the fact that this move is only intended to futurerproof all the swimming activity (both Flight and Trains swimming and gaming)
I think I keep my old system for a while standing beside the new one if I get that.
Still building on my always far to big route and really made good progress in the first half of the year of which I did not show any screenshot (maybe soon but not in a hurry) But determined to make a new finished version on the DLS one day. I am still in no hurry to switch to TRS22 unless some members here will have good stories about it working with Japan content.
I had a Flight Simulator (Ms2020) Episode and flew a lot lately even Long Haul in Realtime. I flew the Boeing 747-8I (Salty Mod) over to Chicago and flew a lot around in the Chicago Area also did some regional Flights to Milwaukee, Champaingn and Minneapolis. Then flew to Denver with the PDMG 737-800 and flew around in the Coldorado Rocky Mountains and bought another nice payware aircraft (VAN's Aircraft RV8). Then flew back to Chicago and this week I returned to Amsterdam. Anyway that was my Flightsim trip.
all in real time> No time acceleration used.So now back on trains
I am still working on my route but work will be super slow.
This summer me and my father will buy a new computer System because while my current system Is still perfect it will be not compatible with the Windows 10 end of life (EOL) and while you can buy enhanced security support we thought it was better to go to a new system anyway.
On the plus side this will be a very fast system but on the downside I am not that much looking forward to the upcoming data migration and to the fact that this move is only intended to futurerproof all the swimming activity (both Flight and Trains swimming and gaming)
I think I keep my old system for a while standing beside the new one if I get that.
Still building on my always far to big route and really made good progress in the first half of the year of which I did not show any screenshot (maybe soon but not in a hurry) But determined to make a new finished version on the DLS one day. I am still in no hurry to switch to TRS22 unless some members here will have good stories about it working with Japan content.
Railshuttle
Member
That was very informative!! Thanks so much for the intel!!