Tuesday 12 April 2016

The Fifth Anniversary of Tokyo Railway Labyrinth

EMU JR Hokkaido H5 series stands at Tokyo Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen

Tokyo Railway Labyrinth had its fifth anniversary last week. I thank all my blog readers for visiting this website and sending comments to me over the last five years. Sorry, it has taken me so long to respond to you, as I have recently been very busy.

When I started this blog, I was stationed in Indonesia. At that time, my home country, Japan, was facing difficulties, including a tsunami that followed a giant earthquake. Putting out the information on Japanese railways was one of my supports to my home country, since most of the railways and trains were saved by the earthquake resistant construction and safety system. Since then, I have been introducing you to the labyrinth of railway routes and their trains in the Tokyo metropolitan area. I think that process is going to go on.

In commemoration of the fifth anniversary, I am going to show you a train with the number "5" in the name... the EMU H"5" series. The EMU JR Hokkaido H5 series is the Tohoku and Hokkaido Shinkansen train launched on March 26th this year. Along with the JR East E5 series, the H5 series is operated as a super express train "Hayabusa (Falcon)" with a maximum speed of 320km/h. A total of 4 sets, 40 units, have been built by Hitachi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The specification of the H5 series is the same as the E5 series, but the color of the side stripe (lilac color) is different from the E5 series (pink color).

 
Side view of the EMU JR Hokkaido H5 series