International Railroad Discussion > Holiday Rapid Kamakura & Sitte Connector (Japan)

Holiday Rapid Kamakura is a seasonal train that usually runs on select holiday weekends. Its purpose is to take passengers along the Musashino Line to Kamakura, a popular tourist spot along Sagami Bay in Kanagawa Prefecture and known for having the Great Buddha bronze statue.

I've visited Kamakura as a tourist years ago, so my boarding this train was strictly for railfanning purposes. I had been unable to ride this train for various reasons, but I was finally visiting Japan during a holiday weekend when the Holiday Rapid was running, Vernal Equinox Day in March of this year. I tried nabbing a reservation on the train, but it was sold out.. so I was forced to sit in the unreserved section.

Holiday Rapid Kamakura travels along the freight-only segment of the Musashino Line between Fuchu-Honmachi and Tsurumi. See the brown line on the bottom left of the map. I drew in blue arrows at the ends, Fuchu-Honmachi on top, and Tsurumi on the bottom. The train originates at Minami-Koshigaya, blue arrow at the top of the map, and the train is staged at the Koshigaya Freight Terminal to the right (brown square).

Besides getting "rare mileage" along the mostly-tunnel Musashino Line freight-only segment, my goal was to document the Kajigaya Freight Terminal (blue circle, bottom of the map), which is not near any train station. Some railfans call this a "secret" freight terminal because of that.

After documenting trains at Shin-Akitsu ("Musashino Line and JR Freight" thread posted previously), I headed to Minami-Koshigaya to document the Type 185 EMU arriving, the train set to be used for the Holiday Rapid Kamakura. That's the first video clip. Type 185 first entered revenue service in 1981, 6 years before the privatization of government-run JNR. It is the last limited express EMU made in the JNR era, so it is a high value target to many railfans in Japan.

In the second clip, I get most of the Kajigaya Freight Terminal, before the train re-enters another tunnel. You can hear the classic, nostalgic sounds of the Showa Era DC traction motor of the Type 185 in the background.

In the third clip, Holiday Rapid Kamakura is racing a Yokosuka Line train to Shin-Kawasaki (a.k.a. Shin-Tsurumi), a location I've documented here on TO. The difference is, I'm now traveling on the freight line. View of the station and the train is blocked by the opposing Yokosuka Line train, but if you look closely, there should be two railfans standing on the north end of the platform.

I continue recording video and right near the end, there should be a single track with a grade crossing that ducks under the Yokosuka Line viaduct. That's the north end of the Sitte Connector, which I'll talk about next.

The Holiday Rapid Kamakura train eventually took the freight connector to the Tokaido Line, then later on the Yokosuka Line to continue its journey to Kamakura. I detrained at Yokohama for another railfan mission - attend the Dr. Yellow Exhibit at SCMaglev and Railway Park (museum) in Nagoya.

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Sitte is a station located on the Nanbu Line right near where it intersects the Tokaido Line near Kasawaki. Nanbu Line is the green line traveling above the Musashino Line between Fuchu-Honmachi and Tsurumi on the map, loosely between the blue arrows I drew in.

I drew a red circle on the map near the bottom, and Sitte Station should be located near the bottom of that small circle. The red circle is the approximate location of the Sitte Tanraku Line, literally translated "Sitte Short-Circuit Line" which makes little sense, so I did my own translation based on its function ("Sitte Connector"), a connector line between Shin-Tsurumi Signal Point and Nanbu Branch Line.

Nanbu Branch Line takes freight trains from the Tokaido and Musashino Lines to Kawasaki and Tokyo Freight Terminals, the short green line near the bottom of the map that travels SE from the red circle. In my Super Rail Cargo report I posted in 2015, I document trains traveling on the Nanbu Branch Line.

Sitte Connector is a single track, slow speed, freight-only line in middle of a residential neighborhood. All trains that travel between Shin-Tsurumi Signal Point (Shin-Kawasaki) and the Tokyo and Kawasaki Freight terminals use this connector. I did some map research to pinpoint the location, and detrained at Nanbu Line's Yako Station, which is one north from Sitte. I then walked around to look for a nice location to record video of a train using the connector...

I stumbled upon a pedestrian/bike only crossing on the Sitte Connector, and spotted a man with Downs Syndrome just standing there with his bicycle, waiting. I quickly decided to trust his instincts and used the location to document the next train, even though I had 3-4 more crossings to scout. After some waiting, a Tokyo Freight Terminal-bound freight showed up, pulled by the classic EF64 locomotive. That S curve is proof that he chose wisely. The video is a nice contrast to the double, triple, quadruple double track mains all over Japan with the frantic bombardment of fast-running passenger trains.

That's it for the report.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/22/17 22:35 by cchan006.

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I really enjoy all your videos from Japan. Especially the reasonably sized freights pulled by box-cab electrics. Also like very much the multiple-track mainlines and non-stop traffic. Please keep the videos coming and thanks very much for your efforts.

Tom