International Railroad Discussion > Mastering Doctor Yellow (Shinkansen Inspection Train in Japan)

I nabbed the Shinkansen Inspection Train, the Doctor Yellow back in May:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3772517

I wasn't planning on catching it again when I visited Japan recently in October, until I found out JR Central was going to run Doctor Yellow TWICE during my stay. Wow, when it rains, it pours! I wasn't going to squander this opportunity, getting double Doctor Yellow luck. I immediately started researching, and this time, I was going to find a Holy Grail location to catch the Holy Grail of Japan railfanning.

Here's a partial list of Holy Grail locations to catch the Shinkansen. Opinions vary, but it's listed in order of desirability, at least for me:

- Mount Fuji in the background, near Shin-Fuji.
- World Heritage Himeji Castle in the background in Himeji.
- Sagami Bay (Pacific Ocean) in the background between Odawara and Atami.
- In the midst of green tea farms near Kakegawa.
- Hamanako (lake/inland sea) near Hamamatsu.

Two locations in the list are reasonably close to train stations, maybe 1.5 mile walk at most, Himeji Castle and Hamanako. I considered Hamanako last May, but went for a nab in Tokyo at Tamachi to make sure it ran, then a second nab at Gifu-Hashima station for the high speed running. I didn't even consider Himeji Castle until I found the hill to take the shot during the JR Rail Pass marathon trip with my brother, but that was after I nabbed the Doctor Yellow already.

Other locations requires more time to access, longer walk, taxi or rental car, tougher terrain, etc. Mount Fuji location, my first choice requires a rental car, and near-perfect visibility and the first snowfall on the peak hadn't happened yet (it did snow few days later). So I started my "timetable rehearsal" for Hamanako, then realized that if for some reason Dr. Yellow didn't run as predicted, I was hosed, since there was no way to catch it before due to schedule constraints - I didn't have access to insider JR employees to give me a heads up.

As I researched further, I realized that Himeji Castle was a viable option. Dr. Yellow taking a break at Shin-Osaka for crew rest and equipment inspection allowed me one location between Tokyo and Nagoya to catch it to make sure it ran, then race ahead of it to a location west of Osaka, where I had more than the 25 minutes required for the walk from Himeji Station to Tegaru-Yama Central Park for the elevated view of the Shinkansen ROW with Himeji Castle in the background.

- Doctor Yellow and the World Heritage Himeji Castle.
- Video to be described next post.

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The first run during my visit was going to be the typical Nozomi run. The second run was going to be the less common Kodama run where Dr. Yellow makes every station stop. The Kodama run was going to occur on my last day in Japan, and I had already decided to let my JR Rail Pass expire the day before, so I was going to catch it at Tamachi, but TWICE, both the inbound and outbound trips in a span of few minutes.

First clip shows Dr. Yellow deadheading from the yard to Tokyo station for the Kodama run, where it is still on the non-revenue line from the yard to the main line. This is on an overpass about 10 minutes walk from the Tamachi Station. Note the abandoned JR Freight line in the foreground - there's a proposal to convert that line to Haneda Airport access for the 2020 Tokyo Olymics.

I catch Dr. Yellow starting its Kodama run in the second clip, viewing north from the walkway at Tamachi Station.

The rest of the videos were taken several days before while my JR Rail Pass was still valid, catching the Nozomi run. In the third clip, I catch Dr. Yellow blast by Higashi-Shizuoka, which is not a Shinkansen station. I was confident (and cocky) so I challenged myself to a more difficult catch by taking the Tokaido Line local from Shizuoka to a non-Shinkansen station. This was my insurance location to see if Dr. Yellow really ran. I was going to abort the chase otherwise.

After returning to Shizuoka, I took the next Shinkansen Hikari to Himeji, then walked and hiked to the peak of Tegaru-Yama Central Park. Unlike the Dr. Yellow catches in May, I didn't have time to rehearse my chase the day before, so I risked getting lost, but fortunately, I found my way to the Holy Grail Himeji Castle angle, although I'd found out later I missed a much shorter route to get there. A handful of railfans arrived about the same time I got there, and you hear the machine gun shutter of one of them in the fourth clip. What he didn't get was the shots of Dr. Yellow going away, rushing into the tunnel, which I got by panning my camcorder.

After Himeji, I backtracked to Osaka to stay overnight, then headed to Aioi the next morning for a personal Holy Grail, to catch Dr. Yellow with my favorite Shinkansen set, the 500 Series. In the fifth clip, Kodama #741 using the 500 Series set arrives into Aioi. In the sixth clip, I get personal satisfaction with Dr. Yellow blasting past the 500 Series. I pan my camcorder to where I was standing to catch a JR Freight train and the 500 Series in March of 2014 to end the clip.

- Dr. Yellow on its return trip to Tokyo and Shinkansen Series 500 at Aioi.
- Kids with moms (ママ鉄, "mama-tetsu" or moms who take kids railfanning) at Tamachi during the Kodama run. You might hear the kids getting excited in the second clip as Dr. Yellow approaches. They are briefly visible ~0:42 in the video.

That's all folks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/15 12:06 by cchan006.

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Thanks for posting these fine videos. Tom Swift trains!

Very interesting ! Thank you for sharing!!!!

The Japanese mystique associated with Doctor Yellow is quite fascinating, in both this and your earlier post.
Maybe someday the California HSR will have a Doctor Yellow of its own! :-)

Tom Y