International Railroad Discussion > Kushiro, Japan tourist train

The Novotto Train at Kushiro, Japan yesterday. Actually two days ago if you are in North America.  Locomotive is Class DE10, a diesel hydraulic with Co-Bo wheel arrangement, built in the 60’s by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. Train takes sightseers through marshlands with a box lunch of seafood that I can’t pronounce the names of.  We did a walk-about around town and stumbled upon this.  The lokie whistle sounded very high pitched not unlike a British steam engine.  It was not a horn.  Advert for this train in the Kushiro station in cartoon font.

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"Norokko" is the name of the tourist train. It's a permutation of "Torokko" which describes an open air railcar. "Noro" means slow, so "Norokko" is a slow-running open air railcar. In the video, the Norokko isn't so slow but accelerates quite a bit!

And the word "Torokko" is a Japanese twist of the English word "trolley." My guess is that "Torokko" resembles old, historic, open air trolleys.

Any photos of the bento (lunch box)?? First Google hit of the lunch served onboard the train shows fried chicken, shumai, wiener dog, potato salad, and onigiri (riceball + seaweed). Not much seafood. It's called "Nonbiri Bento" and "nonbiri" translated can mean relaxed, lazy, ties in with "Norokko."

I suspect you are in Kushiro to visit the Kushiro Marshlands National Park? The "Norokko" train is one way to enjoy the marshlands. Thanks for the report from Hokkaido.

Yes I botched the spelling , it is Norokko.

No I did not photograph the bento box contents.  It didn't look
appetizing to this Texan who is used to tacos on a picnic run.
The station looks like a sort of Soviet inspired architectural style,
in fact, the small police station next door had both Japanese and Russian
signage out front.


Here is a photo of the station, and a singular motorcar that had just arrived.

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Here is another single motorcar arriving the station at Kushiro.

There was another long train, maybe 8 cars, that arrived while we were there,
but we were on the wrong side of the station to shoot its arrival.  It looked a bit
more posh than these singular cars, like the yellow door job on the poster shown here.
Not many folks got off.  It was about 10:45 am or thereabouts.

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WrongWayMurphy Wrote:
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> There was another long train, maybe 8 cars, that
> arrived while we were there, but we were on the
> wrong side of the station to shoot its arrival.

Should have been the Limited Express Ōzora #1 out of Sapporo at 6:48 am, into Kushiro at 10:58 am. 

> It looked a bit more posh than these singular cars, like the
> yellow door job on the poster shown here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Czora_(train)

The mainline west of the station is Nemuro/Sekisho Line toward Sapporo. To the east, line splits into Nemuro Line eastward along the coast, and Kushiro Line northeastward toward Abashiri.

The DMU coming west into Kushiro was likely from the Nemuro Line, also 10:58 am arrival. Looks like the Kiha 54 DMU.

In winter months, the schedule slot for the Norokko Train is taken up by a steam excursion, led by the tank engine C11-171. Kinda cool the information I can obtain from a paper system schedule.