Lol finally someone noticed it, its some meme asset kuro made
Mike Wazowski faceswapped with.... someone else!
Anyway, following my previous 6300 Series, here's another Mita Line train - this time the older 6000 Series!
Already available on my website!
This is of course a reasonably well-known train as far as trainz content goes, having been made countless times in almost evry sauce. However, nearly all Toei 6000 Series models have been made from an "Indonesian" perspective, with the train being modelled as it was in service in Indonesia (with all related fetaures such as cowcatchers and window grills) and then eventually "back-modelled" into a Japanese version. This time around, i wanted to make the opposite - modelling from the "Japanese perspective" to properly encompass all the slight variations these trains had during their service life.
Now, depsite it's unassuming appearance, the Toei 6000 Series has quite a tricky and intersting history, indissolubly connected to the one of it's line - the Mita Line, wich has always been one, if not the one with the most difficult upbringing among all of Tokyo's subway lines, wether TRTA or Toei ones.
What is today's Mita Line was originally planned in 1957 as two different lines, one being a replacement for serveral tramway lines, intended to function as a branch of the Asakusa Line (and as such adopting the Asakusa Line's 1435mm standard gauge) and the other as a northern branch of the Tozai Line, wich would've been operated by TRTA and would've eventually reached Toda in Saitama Prefecture (ideally to serve a boat racing venue of the 1964 olympics).
In 1962 the subway master plan was revised, with the two branches being merged into a single line, numbered as Line 6, and planned to run between Gotanda, Itabashi and Takashimadaira, wich at the time was a rural zone being built up into a very dense cluster of
Danchi apartments, Japan's typical apartment blocks (inspired from Soviet practices) that shaped urban expansion thruought the Japanese economic miracle.
Since the southern section was to be shared with the Asakusa Line to reach Nishi-Magome depot, Toei kept the 1435mm gauge in it's plans for Line 6, however soon both Tokyu and Tobu railway intervened, strongly demanding that Line 6 connect to their respective networks, since the line's planned terminuses were directly adjacent (such as in the case of Gotanda station for the Tokyu Ikegami Line) or within short distance from some of their main stations (Takashimadaira was a few kilometers away from Tobu's Wakoshi station), thus forcing Toei to redraw it's plans and to opt for the 1067mm gauge instead, making Line 6 incompatible with the Asakusa Line.
Tokyu Railway dropped out relatively soon from these plans, since their primary objective was to connect the Denentoshi Line to the subway network, ideally to the Ginza Line, even if it meant adopting a third rail (ultimately the Denentoshi Line began trough-services with the Hanzomon Line in 1978, built as a relief and bypass of the overcrowded Ginza Line).
However, Toei continued building Line 6, and was preparing for trough-services with Tobu, specificially with the Tojo Line - the ATS system was built to be compatible with Tobu's, and the subway rolling stock was to follow Tobu standards, including the provision of a raised driving position as a saftey mesaure against collisions at level crossings.
The first batch of these such trains, fourteen 4-car sets classified as the 6000 Series were built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries with electrical equipment from Hitachi, and were delivered in early 1968 to commence test-running on the nearly-finished infrastructure of the line.
Toei's sleek new stainless-steel trains were a true step-up from coeval rolling stock, however depsite their unassuming technical equipment and standard fittings, the 6000 Series was the bearer of a small, but fundamental revolution, being one of the first mass-produced trains fitted with an SIV, a static inverter.
Now, to power passenger compartment lighting (and other fetaures), a so called "low-voltage" (or "auxiliary") electrical circuit is used, with a voltage usually between 12 and 440V DC, powered by the train's auxiliary batteries (wich are continuously recharged by the catenary while the pantograph is up). However, having a DC circuit means that the powered equipment (such as lights) has to be DC as well, meaning it needs to be specialized (as most of it is produced for the house mains of 100V AC), and thus relatively expensive. A Static Inverter instead is an inverter that indeed converts DC to AC current, (unlike the traction inverters that would be widely adopted two decades later, SIVs only have a single output frequency) meaning that the auxiliary circuit for the lighting and interiors could be converted to the same 100V AC current of Japanese house mains, enabling manufacturers to utilize commonly available and mass-produced household-like equipment such as lightbulbs, driving down costs and making spare parts easier to source.
With this small but fundamental revolution, something that has been standard since on all kinds of rolling stock, the 6000 Series was awarded the 1969 "Laurel Prize" by the Japan Railfan Club.
For the planned trough-services with Tobu Railway, the 6000 Series had been fitted (besides the afromentioned raised driving position) with an additional service type indicator above the driver's window and the top destination rollsign was also already fitted with some Tobu Tojo Line station names: Wakoshi, Shiki, Kami-Fukuoka, Sakadocho (currently Sakado), Hgashimatsuyama and Shinrin-Koen, the northernmost terminus of most Tojo Line services.
Livery-wise, the 6000 Series was left unpainted, except for a thin dark red line on the sides, then the colour of Toei's rolling stock (both lines of the Toei Subway and also of the surface Toden tram network and Toei busses as well).
Finally, the first section of the Line, from Sugamo to Takashimadaira opened on the 27th of December 1968, with 6000 Series trains entering revenue service on the same day. This portion was isolated from the rest of the subway network (both Toei's and TRTA ones), and initially only acted as a feeder to the Yamanote Line, wich it connected to at Sugamo.
However, even as the northern portion of the line opened to the public, Tobu still hadn't bothered to start construction for their branch line from Wakoshi station to Takashimadaira, where it would have connected with the Mita line.
Tobu was getting second thoughts, partly because the Mita line took a slightly circuitous route to central Tokyo, but also because it wouldn't pass through Ikebukuro - Tobu had their terminal there, and thus, like most japanese major private railways had a significant commercial presence. Having direct trough-services between the Tojo Line and the Mita line would have given passengers a more direct link to shopping areas in central Tokyo, such as high-end Ginza, effectively self-hurting their own department stores businness in Ikebukuro.
Around the same time, the president of Seibu Railway, which also had a major railway line terminating in Ikebukuro, used his considerable financial and political power to change the planned route of what would later become the Yurakucho line to pass through Ikebukuro, and to evenutally connect with the Seibu Ikebukuro line.
As soon as this change was finalized and approved Tobu jumped ship, announcing their intentions to connect the Tojo line to the Yurakucho line as well (in what would eventually become the intricated mess of the Yurakucho and Fukutoshin Lines), and basically told Toei to go screw themselves.
Toei (and thus by extension, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government) predictably protested vociferously, but the national government told them to stay put.
As a result, Toei was left with a subway line that was fully compatible with a commuter line that it was intended to connect to, but remained orphaned of trough-services possibilities at both ends of the Line.
Depsite this, Toei Subway soldered on, remaining open for eventual trough-service openings. The Mita Line was extended southwards to Hibiya on the 30th of June 1972, ending the "temporary isolation" to the line and it's proper integration into the Tokyo subway network. For this extension another batch of 6000 Series trains, built by Alna Koki and Nippon Sharyo with Hitachi equipment, formed as nine 6-car sets plus an additional 28 cars to lenghten the 1968 1st batch trains to six cars as well.
These new second batch trains fetaured a few improvements and changes - first of all, Toei (having gave up any hope for a start of trough-services with Tobu railway within reasonable time) had the new batch delivered with rollsigns devoid of Tobu station names. Secondly, the new trains were still unpainted stainless, but with a blue line instead, having been choosen as the Mita Line's colour to distinguish it from other subway lines.
The two liveries mixed up for some time, and for a brief period it was possible to spot "mixed formations" two "blue" 2nd-batch cars sandwitched in the middle of a 1st-batch "red" formation. Eventually within a year, all trains were repainted into the Mita Line blue livery (and Tobu station names were all removed from rollsign at the first scheduled maintainance).
On the 27th of November 1973 the line reached it's namesake Mita Station, the interchange with Toei's other subway line, the Asakusa Line. For this extension, another batch of 6000 Series trains was delivered, formed as three 6-car sets built by Alna Koki and essentially identical to 2nd batch ones built a year earlier.
[Continues in following post]