Railshuttle
Member
Oh so it is a real standard gauged train. Those must be pretty rare in Japan.The 30000's run on standard gauge track in real life, as do the 12X00 series trains
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Oh so it is a real standard gauged train. Those must be pretty rare in Japan.The 30000's run on standard gauge track in real life, as do the 12X00 series trains
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 incorrectOh so it is a real standard gauged train. Those must be pretty rare in Japan.
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.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.
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.
That was very informative!! Thanks so much for the intel!!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.