International Railroad Discussion > New Years Eve around Aomori (Part 2)

Some further shots of the variety of trains in the Aomori area.

Photo 1: DMU's KiHa #40 545 & 40 558 on 1121hrs Kanita to Mimmaya local service. This service operates on the Tsugaru Line, & was a cross platform transfer from an electric local service from Aomori. Most of the line to Kanita runs close to the coast of the eastern side of Aomori Bay/Matsu Bay

Kanita is approximately 27km/20 miles from Aomori & about half way to Mimmaya. The line to the Seikan Tunnel branches off about 4km/3miles after Kanita.

Photo 2: Tsugaru #6, 1336hrs ex Aomori to Akita awaits departure at Aomori's platform 5, with a 4 car E751 series set

Photo 3: "Rapid Resort Asunaro Shimokita #3" awaits its 1326hrs departure to Ominato with a HB-E300 series 2 car Hybrid DMU. This train travel around the west side of Matsu Bay.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/15 11:05 by Stephenloco.

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Very enjoyable. For those of us not familiar with the current scene, can you easily tell us who are the operators of each of these trainsets ?

With best regards, SZ

Steinzeit Wrote:
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> Very enjoyable. For those of us not familiar with
> the current scene, can you easily tell us who are
> the operators of each of these trainsets ?
>
> With best regards, SZ

All of the train sets in this report are operated by JR East. The Resort Asunaro Shimokita runs on non-JR/dai-san sector Aoimori Railway tracks between Aomori and Noheji to reach the JR East's Ominato Line. It's interesting that Ominato Line is disconnected from the rest of the JR East network.

HB-E300 is a Genset-like DMU, where combination of diesel generator and battery power the AC traction motors on the train set. Traditional DMUs in Japan are like Budd RDCs, diesel engine driving the wheels via hydraulic/mechanical transmission, which I'm sure you know already, but I have to spell it out for the rest of the audience.

Its concept was being discussed when I visited Japan back in 2006, but I didn't realize the technology was already in revenue service! According to a quick lookup, the HB-E300 started revenue service in 2010.

Stephenloco Wrote:
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> Some further shots of the variety of trains in the
> Aomori area.

Thanks for your second installment. Aomori has been a pass-through station for me, where I might spend a few minutes to buy locally produced apples as snacks on my way to/from Hokkaido, but that's it. You got me interested in possibly doing a railfan trip to Aomori someday!

thanks for the hybrid information - I was unaware of what the actual "hybrid" setup was!

What is not clear in the photo, is that under the windows (in English) are the words "RESORT HYBRID"