International Railroad Discussion > Doai station on the JR Joetsu Line

The picture is of the southbound track as it exits a 10 km tunnel before arriving at the Doai station behind me. The northbound tracks are reached through a passenger bridge and tunnel and descending 486 steps to the underground steps in the 13.4 kilometer tunnel. The southbound track toward Minakami decends a spiral loop tunnel next before exiting at Yubiso. More pictures of this soon.

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The tunnel portal in your photo is the original Shimizu Tunnel, not too shabby at 9.7 km (6 miles) in length, even though it's shorter than the new Shimizu Tunnel for the northbound tracks that you mentioned, and even shorter than the Dai-Shimizu Tunnel ("Big" Shimizu Tunnel) nearby for the Joetsu Shinkansen which is 22 km (13.8 miles) in length.

For anyone curious, the Shimizu Tunnel is the main reason for Joetsu Line's existence, opened in 1931 to cut travel time between Tokyo and Niigata from 11 hours to 7 hours or so. The line was electrified from the start. Due to the Joetsu Shinkansen, this segment has more freight trains (10-11 roundtrips) than passenger trains (5-6 roundtrips with 2 more during ski season), so it's a difficult place to foam (relatively speaking) by train only.

Nice exploration of Japan's railroad history!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/14 10:50 by cchan006.