Saturday 24 November 2012

Autumn Colors on the Chichibu Railway


Classic EMU Chichibu 1000 (left) and Seibu 4000 (right) series at Mitsumineguchi Station

The foliage season has come to the Tokyo metropolitan area again. In autumn, many people enjoy viewing the leaves change of color. It shows us the tremendous beauty, which we hardly notice in our daily routine life. I visited the Chichibu area last weekend, and enjoyed mid-autumn in the country. It was a bright, clear and quiet day.

To begin with, I reached Mitsumineguchi Station on the Chichibu Railway. Various colored foliaged mountains lay behind the terminal, and in front was a small flatland for a local village. It was a very quiet weekend morning around the station (see the following photo).

In the station yard, I could see a wide variety of trains (see the top photo). The vermilion colored classic one is the EMU 1000 series, which was transferred from JR East in the late '80s. The original model number was EMU JNR (Japan National Railways) 101 series, manufactured in the '60s. I often got on this type of train in downtown Tokyo, when I was a child.

The white colored train with blue, red and green colored stripes is the EMU Seibu 4000 series. This train is directly operated from Seibu Railway at the end of each week. It was launched in 1988 as a standard class train; but it has enough facilities such as cozy seats and sanitary toilets for long distance passengers.

I could also see many other kinds of trains there, but I will perhaps show them another time.

Nostalgic Mitsumineguchi Station on the Chichibu Railway