Funky old Fukui Railway

[bill937ca]

The Fukui Railway is a funky mix of streetcar line and railway which was somewhat updated in 2006 after the closure of Meitetsu's Gifu 600V lines.  The Fukui Railway has a 20.9 km mainline and a single 0.5 km branch to the Fukui JR station.

High platform trains stop at curb level stations on wide streets, mainline switches are covered by snow fences and currently a mix of low floor and high floor trains and cars.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/YyGutUmPg7M" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/YyGutUmPg7M</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/bfmOoqEVWPQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/bfmOoqEVWPQ</a>

There is PDF timetable showing all stations on the Fukui Railway.  Local trains are in black and express trains are in reddish pink.

http://www.fukutetsu.jp/traintime/fukui-small.pdf

This is a profile of the line as of 1994 on the Japanese Railway Society web site. Then as now all of the rolling stock is second hand.

http://www.japaneserailwaysociety.com/jrs/members/oliver/fukui/fukuirailway.htm

Checkout the track center in this video.  Its full size trains on 1067mm gauge track.  It looks like a good prototype for Tomix tram track and Tomytec Railway Collection trains.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/0B2aTTuULwM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/0B2aTTuULwM</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/euCt6UX-SDM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/euCt6UX-SDM</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ls-jV1FeGbc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/ls-jV1FeGbc</a>

[scott]

What are the arches that the express railcar runs through in the last video?

[bill937ca]

What are the arches that the express railcar runs through in the last video?

A snow shelter over switches.  This region of Japan gets very heavy snow falls.

[scott]

Cool--that makes sense. I had seen something similar on another site or  video, but didn't make the connection.

[Mudkip Orange]

I'm diggin' the James Bond Love Scene background music.