Here's the second part of my 211/213/415-1500/719 + Shikoku 6000 Series megapack: the 213 Series!
From right to left: JNR, JR West, the five variations of the KuRo 212 panoramic cab car, the 213-100 Series cab car converted from intermediate cars and JR Central's 213-5000 Series.
All of these are already directly avaible (
here for the JNR version,
here for the JR West version, including the KuRo 212s and the 213-100 Series, and
here for the JR Central version). They're also avaible on my website as well.
In case of missing dependenices download
this.
The 213 Series bears the distinction of having been the last entirely new series developed by JNR - mere months before the national railways' privatization. The 213 Series was intended for rapid service on the Seto-Ooashi Line, wich was to be routed via the (then) under-construction Great Seto Bridge, a 13 kilometers long concatenation of six suspended bridges that was to run between Honshu and Shikoku. With it's two-deck configuration (the upper one for automobile traffic and the lower one for railway services), the Great Seto Bridge was intended to replace the existing slow ferries (operated by JNR itself) between Takamatsu and Uno, where passengers could change to a Uno Line train to Okayama.
Crossing from Honshu to Shikoku took about one hour via the ferry. The bridge was supposed to bring the time needed to cross the strait down to just 20 minutes.
Roughly, the concept of the 213 Series was to be to the 211 Series what the 117 Series was to the 115 Series - in other words, a technically as-similar-as-possible, two-doors, cross-seating fitted rapid service derivative of the latter. However, to contain costs, the 213 Series was designed to be even more similar to the 211 Series, to the point of being nearly identical as far as technical equipment went. In fact, the 211 and 213 Series share the entirety of their technical components, including the same bogeys, pantographs, motors, traction control system, doors, driving desks, 20m-long stainless steel bodyshell design, FRP front mask and so on.
However there were several differences as well: besides the more obvious ones (two doors per side instead of three, cars fully fitted with a cross-seating arrangment as opposed to the 211s' semi-cross or longitudinal seating arrangment and the wider passenger windows), the 213 Series also sported some less subtle differences, such as the lowered assistant drivers' front window (in a fashion similar to the future JR Central's 211-5000 Series sets) and some minor improvements to the bodyshell design for the sake of simplification and manufacturing cost reduction.
Owning to the "lightweightness" of the stainless steel bodyshells, the 213 Series sets were intended to be formed as 3-car sets in an 1M2T formation (only one power car per set), eventually to be coupled togheter in multiple unit working.
Manufactured jointly by Kinki Sharyo, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Nippon Sharyo, Tokyu Car Co. and Hitachi, the firsthe first eight 3-car sets (a total of 24 cars) entered service in March 1987, fitted in a two-tone light and dark blue livery (both tonalities coincidentally simialr to the company colours adopted by JR Shikoku and JR West after the privatziation) and assigned to Okayama depot. As the Great Seto Bridge wasn't open yet, the 213 Series sets were provisionally deployed on the Uno Line, to replace the 115 Series sets in use until then.
On the 22nd of March, the provisional
Bisan Liner rapid services were introduced, running 11 roundtrips between Okayama and Uno, stopping at Hayashima and Chayamachi. These were intended to form a rapid connection to the ferries, and were also a sort of "preparation" before the dedicated Seto-Ooashi Line rapid services could began. The Bisan Liner services were almost always formed as nine-car sets (with two nine car trains in operation and the remaining two 3-car sets stored as spares), altough during high season, formations up to twelve cars (four sets) could be spotted as well.
With the privatization of JNR, on the 1st of April 1987, the whole 213 Series fleet was inherited by JR West. The Great Seto Bridge, and with it, the Seto-Ooashi Line, was opened on the 11th of April 1988, with 213 Series set finally commencing the
Marine Liner rapid services between Takamatsu and Okayama they were intended for.
To increase the capacity of these trains (and to overall increase the attractiveness of the service), JR West decided to introduce unique panoramic, reserved seating cab cars, classified as the KuRo 212 series. Five units of these were manufactured by Kinki Sharyo in 1988, each one fitted a different livery: a common base of candid white and dark blue small lines, with the main band being either pink, acqua green, green, orange or yellow.
Around the same time, a general re-formation of the 213 Series fleet was implemented, mixing togheter the original JNR-built sets, the KuRo 212 cab cars and a variety of individual newly-made cars to "even out the consists". After the reorganization, JR West ended up with 12 213 Series 3-car sets, with five of them being fitted with the KuRo 212 panoramic cab car at their "Takamatsu end". In normal operation, Marine Liner sets were formed of two or three coupled 213 Series 3-car sets for a total of six or nine cars (always with the KuRo 212 at the Takamatsu end). However, due to the immense popularity of the Marine Liner services, their capacity always remained a bit stretched, as demand for commuter services between Okayama and Sakaide station was, and still is partly to this day, very high.
However, after 15 years in service shuttling people between Honshu and Shikoku, 213 Series trains started to suffer from saltwater corrosion damage to the underframe equipment. Furthemore, as all sets were owned by JR West, JR Shikoku had to pay a fee for the usage of these trains. As such, in early 2003, a replacement for the 213 Series was introduced: JR Shikoku's 5000 Series, wich was a direct derivative of JR West's 223 Series (and was to be used in multiple-unit working formation with the latter's -5000 Subseries).
Capable of a 130Km/h top speed (compared to the 110Km/h of the 213 Series) and fitted with a double-deck cab car, the new 5000 Series sets began operation on
Marine Liner services with the fall timetable change, on the 1st of October 2003, instantly replacing the 213 Series sets that had been in service until then.
After their retirement from Marine Liner services, JR West decided to transfer 213 Series to local service workings in the Okayama area. With the transfer, the KuRo 212 cab cars were removed from all consists and stored, before being all eventually scrapped in 2008.
With the removal of the five cab cars, there were now five 213 Series sets without a cab on one end - to solve this problem, JR West decided to retrofit cabs to the five intermediate cars that the "cab-less" sets had. The conversion works were carried out by JR West's Suita workshops and consisted in the cutting away 1.9m of the trailer cars' bodyshell and replacing it with a "pre-made" conventional steel cab portion of equal lenght (with the front design made to be as similar to the original 213 Series' front one), wich was later welded in place. The results was a bit crude, but effective nonetheless.
Another important modification was fitting the newly converted cab cars (re-classified as KuHa 213-100 Series) with a large universal accessible toilet.
After yet another re-organization, in 2004 JR West ended up still with twelve 213 Series sets (numbered C1 to C12), however in different formations: sets C1 to C3 were former 3-car sets that had their intermediate trailer removed, leaving only the two "original" cab cars, sets C4 to C6 and C12 were nearly-unchanged 3-car sets, while sets C7 to C11 were the five 2-car sets that had the KuHa 213-100 cab car.
Out of these, all the two car sets (C1 to C3 and C7 to C11) plus the 3-car C12 set had also been converted for one-man operation, while the C4 to C6 sets kept their conductors.
213 Series sets were re-deployed on various local services running out of Okayama, primarily on the Uno Line (all the way to Uno Station) but also on the Hakubi Line (as far as Niimi Station) and the Ako Line as far as Banshu-Ako station. Sometimes the 213 Series sets are also used as local trains on the JR West section of the Seto-Ooashi Line, between Kojima station and Okayama.
However, the transfer to local duties hasn't meant the end of Seto Bridge crossing services for the 213 Series, as occasionally, when a JR Shikoku 5000 Series isn't avaible, one or two 213 Series sets (usually picked from sets C4 to C6) is put in service in it's place. Such was the case between February and mid-April 2007 (a 5000 Series set had suffered a crash with a truck at a level crossing and was undergoing repairs) and between the 11th and the 12th of June 2009 (here instead a 5000 Series window had been smashed by debris).
In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Great Seto Bridge, on the 10th of April 2008, a "Marine Liner Revival" service was operated between Okayama and Takamatsu with two coupled 213 Series 3-car sets with all seats reseved.
[continues in following post]