JR Central (JR Tokai) held “Go to Hamamatsu Works,” an open-house event at the Tokaido Shinkansens Hamamatsu Works. Launched in 2023 as a successor to the pre-pandemic public open day “Shinkansen Naruhodo Discovery Day,” this year marked the third edition. The tour used group-only charter trains from major stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the Shizuoka, Chubu, and Kansai regions, entered the yard via a connecting track from Hamamatsu Station, and went directly into the Hamamatsu Works. It ran on October 25 and 26 over two days.
On the opening day, the 25th, a total of 562 participants joined from Tokyo, Shinagawa, Shin-Yokohama, Mishima, Shizuoka, and Hamamatsu stations. The group-only charter, operated by N700S set J38, departed Tokyo Station from Track 14 at 10:24 a.m. After picking up participants at each station, it reversed beyond Hamamatsu Station and entered the spur track leading to the Hamamatsu Works, where riders experienced the N700Ss self-propulsion system powered by its onboard emergency battery.
▲ When the power switches to battery, the main lighting turns off and the emergency lights come on
Midway along the spur, the train made a brief stop, lowered its pantographs, and switched to battery power; the cabin lights changed to emergency lighting, leaving the interior dim. Remaining on battery self-propulsion, the train passed the only level crossing on the Tokaido Shinkansen (Nishi-Iba No. 1 Crossing) and arrived around 1:00 p.m. at Track 2 of the maintenance shop inside the Hamamatsu Works.
▲ The “shortest Shinkansen(?)” moving under propulsion by a shunting vehicle
The star exhibit on site was the “shortest Shinkansen(?)”: two leading cars from retired N700A set X51 coupled back-to-back. As each leading car is 27.35 meters long, the two-car consist measures about 54.70 meters; by comparison, a standard Shinkansen trainset is 16 cars and about 404.70 meters long. Propelled and towed by the L12 shunting vehicle, it also ran back and forth on yard tracks at 5 km/h.
Other features included a live demonstration of a traverser that moves railcars laterally and a VR experience for operating the emergency stop button on a station platform. Displays showcased maintenance-of-way vehicles such as a crane wagon, a “Retro Bus” wrapped in a livery paying homage to the express bus design used during the transition from JNR Bus to JR Tokai Bus, and products made from recycled aluminum from the Tokaido Shinkansen. Participants thoroughly enjoyed the event.
▲ Entering Hamamatsu Works after passing the only level crossing on the Tokaido Shinkansen
▲ Staff welcome the charter train carrying participants inside the works
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This article was generated using automatic translation by GPT-4 API. The translation may not be accurate.
