For Vectron!

Hikone Sawayama: base

Walking North along the railway from Hikone station, one reaches the base of the hiking trail up Sawayama. After passing Nagabayashi Inari-jinja, a typical shrine dedicated to the shintô deity of prosperity with its succession of red torii gates, several temples appear, featuring monuments to two historical figures of Hikone, Ishida Mitsunari and Ii Naomasa. More on them when we reach the top.

This is Ryôtan-ji Sanmon, the "gate to the mountain" which leads us to the grounds of Ryôtan temple and starting the short, sharp climb. As we begin, we are met with more popular Japanese deities: the Shichi-Fukujin, or Seven Lucky Gods.

Apparently Ryôtan-ji has a fantastic zen garden, but we missed it.

381 series: the last of the JNR-era electric express trains

We mentioned the upcoming withdrawal of the Doctor Yellow Shinkansen track inspection trains, but there is another retirement I've wanted to talk about as it's just happened, and it's a train I had the chance to ride last summer.

Launched in 1973, the 381 series was the Japanese National Railways (JNR) first tilting electric express train, designed to speed up the Shinano limited express services on the winding mountainous route between Nagoya and Nagano. The tilting compensates for G-forces inside the carriages, allowing the train to take curves up to 25 km/h faster without creating passenger discomfort. As such, it is already a significant piece of railway history, with JR Tokai preserving one lead car at its SC Maglev Railway Park museum in Nagoya.

Over the next 50 years, the 381s would be moved around whenever they were superseded on specific routes, but soldier on nonetheless. Their last services would be JR West's Yakumo limited express between Okayama and Izumo, another route with lots of hills and curves. Now, it is replaced by brand new 273 series sets, based on JR West's current express train design, still with tilt.

The 381 series lived through the entire L-tokkyû period, in which many limited express services were marketed with an L symbol signifying higher levels of convenience. This logo was phased out in the 2000s and 2010s largely due to all JR limited expresses running to L-tokkyû standards, and as far as I can tell, the 381s are likely the last trains to wear the L badge, as well as the classic JNR express chevron seen above, on a regular basis.

さようなら381系

Kanazawa-Tsuruga Shinkansen extension open!

Since yesterday, these beauties (seen at Takasaki on the same trip I had that "race" into Omiya) have another 120 km of track to play on, as the Hokuriku Shinkansen extends further West along the coast of the Sea of Japan into Fukui Prefecture.

Of course, the best news here is that travel times between Kanazawa and Tsuruga are slashed - let me rephrase: halved - compared to the previous fastest express services. The dream of completing the route to Kyoto and Osaka is in reach, and if you add the Maglev line, there could, in the long-term future, be three full high-speed Tokyo-Osaka lines: the historic South coast route, the scenic North coast route and the ultra-fast route straight through the middle.

But there are other consequences. As has become the standard along the Hokuriku route, the old line has immediately been sold off to a "third sector" company - largely run and subsidised by local authorities for as long as they're happy to keep the line open. Only all-stop trains are operated by these third sector companies, so there are only two options: very slow local trains, or very fast, but all the more expensive, high-speed trains. No rapids, no expresses.

The express trains which used to go to Kanazawa now all terminate early at Tsuruga, including the Thunderbirds - of course, technologically advanced Japan has more than the five Thunderbirds Gerry Anderson could muster! This display board seen in 2016 is not likely to be seen again. And if the route to Kyoto is completed, will the name disappear altogether, or continue as an omnibus Shinkansen service to Toyama? Maybe resurrect the original name Raichô (yes, similar to the Pokémon)?

Train geek notes aside, the future's hopefully bright for the region this new stretch of line serves, which was hit hard by the New Year Earthquake.

北陸新幹線おめでとうございます!

The train to Kushimoto: a JR West 283-series Kuroshio express. The sets are getting on a bit, they were introduced in 1996 and the livery could do with a refresh, but the "dolphin nose" is distinctive, and I, for one, really like it. They're also quite rare, only 4 sets exist.

The Kisei Main Line is essentially the coastal route from Nagoya to Wakayama. The full trip around the Kii peninsula takes 8 hours by express train, with a change required at Shingû or Katsuura, but it's definitely scenic as it gets very close to the sea (photo between Kii-Tahara and Koza).

The Montech water slope

At around the same time as the "Inclined Plane" of Saint-Louis-Arzviller, other types of boat lifts were being engineered in other places. One of these was the Montech water slope, situated in Southern France on the Canal Parallel to the Garonne (Canal Latéral à la Garonne), the canal from Toulouse to Bordeaux which most people would probably refer to as the Canal du Midi - a better-known term though strictly speaking, the Canal du Midi is only the section from Toulouse to the Mediterranean.

From what I can garner, the two-headed vehicle used on this slope is a conjoining of two Diesel railcars built by Soulé in the early 70s, running on tyres and featuring a daunting-looking shield. This shield would be lowered behind a boat, and the machine would travel up and down the slope, carrying along the boat and the water it bathed in!

However, the performance of this system is less impressive than the Inclined Plane. It bypasses 5 locks, and saves 45 minutes of travel time. That's not nothing, but if you arrived at an end and just missed the train, then going straight to the locks wasn't going to be much longer than waiting for the next one. Also, far more power is required to make this work (I'm reading 1000 hp motors, versus 125 hp for the Inclined Plane), and it's Diesel.

These photos were taken in late 2017, 8 years after the water slope closed. It was only serving leisure boats by then, and, as I've insinuated, it wasn't very economical to run. As far as I can tell, the 5 locks beside it never closed, and are in use today.

The slope and its tractor have since been renovated, and the site's current state can be seen in a Tim Traveller video published in 2021.

A little local train in Hikone: Ômi Tetsudô is a private company that's been around in the area for over 125 years, hence the panel on this particular train, in retro colours.

Japan has many small lines run by small companies which were never nationalised. However, Ômi Tetsudô is owned by the larger private rail company Seibu, based in the North-Western sector of Tokyo, whose main route is Ikebukuro to Chichibu. Ômi mainly runs second-hand Seibu stock.

A potential unfulfilled: the Intercity 225

As I had some time to wander around before catching the Eurostar back to France, I checked out the trains at King's Cross station. To my slight disappointment, there wasn't a huge amount of variety on display: Azuma, Azuma, Azuma... They're nice trains, don't get me wrong (built by Hitachi, using the same base as JR Kyushu's 885 series), but that's all there was. Still, I decided to check out all the platforms, and, at the far end, hidden behind an Azuma, there it was.

The star in train books during my childhood was the Intercity 125 or High Speed Train (HST), a 125 mph-capable Diesel-powered set, which, I think, still holds the world record for the fastest Diesel passenger service. I would have loved to see one when visiting England, but this was just as good. In fact, I had seen it out of the window while riding into London, taken a crappy photo and thought "oh well, never mind", only to see it had followed us in.

In the early 90s, the Intercity 225 was touted as the next big thing: all-electric, capable of running at 225... km/h (that's 140 mph, using different units was admittedly a bit disingenuous), designed to receive a tilting mechanism later on, completing the Advanced Passenger Train's redemption arc. What could go wrong?

Not long after the introduction of the Intercity 225, Britain's railways were privatised, with the typical lack of ambition for service that it brings. No private company was going to invest in the infrastructure and upgrades to allow the train to reach its full potential; meanwhile France and Germany were expanding their 250-300 km/h networks. Instead, these trains were limited it to 125 mph - the same as the HST, just on electrified lines. Worse still, it was one of these sets that met with the consequences of the privatised rail maintenance's culture of corner-cutting and outsourcing, on a broken rail at Hatfield in 2000.

From the outside looking in, I'm left with a bitter sense of "what could have been" for this train. Perhaps a rail fan from the UK could say more about what they feel the Intercity 225's legacy would be. At least its successor, the Azuma, has the fact that it's bi-mode (Diesel and electric) to shout about.

Still great to see one and its "so 90s" design in the flesh! LNER have also given the trains their original livery back, except with a burgundy main body colour instead of the original graphite grey, while the locomotive was in a special commemorative livery for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.

For more on the Intercity 225: Ruairidh MacVeigh's video

Catène de Containers

To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the founding of the port on the right bank of the Seine estuary, Le Havre went big. They commissioned a sculpture from artist Vincent Ganivet... and he delivered a monument!

Standing at nearly 29 m tall, the arches are made with 36 shipping containers, representing Le Havre's half-millennium as an international trade hub. 21 in one and 15 in the other, they are arranged in a catenary shape which makes the structure self-supporting. There's stuff to satisfy a maths and physics buff in there somewhere... but I'll just concentrate on the fact that it looks cool, especially compared to its industrial and brutalist surroundings.

As a major port in Nazi-occupied France, Le Havre was bombed into oblivion by the Allies, hence most of the town centre's buildings were built at once in the late 1940s-early 1950s. The result is a very rigid, homogeneous, mineral urban environment, to which the Catène adds a welcome dash of colour.

But if nothing else (and we've established there is a lot else), it looks like it'd make a compelling Mario Kart track.

Back to the Arzviller-Henridorff lock ladder

I took my own advice and returned to Arzviller to walk the full section of closed canal. It turns out the upper part is less overgrown and more active than the lower end. I'd only gone from the bottom lock, n°17, up to lock n°14 (under the railway bridge) at the time.

Starting from the top, the house at lock n°2 is a crêperie restaurant, while lock n°4 is a gîte complete with a private fishing pier. I counted four lock houses with some form of art going (n°2, 10, 13 and 15). The other lock houses are more or less well-maintained residences. There are no houses standing at locks n°14 and 17.

The Vallée des Éclusiers, or Lock-keepers' Valley, is well worth the wander. The quickest is either to drive there or cycle from Lutzelbourg station. But more on the logistics tomorrow - for now, let's enjoy lock n°9, probably the most dramatic on the route.

Seaside sunset at Le Havre

Enjoyed a nice weekend away with long-time-no-see friends in Normandy. The rain cleared throughout Saturday, giving us the opportunity to get out and watch the sunset from the "End of the World" beach, along the coast from Le Havre, out of view from the industrial port.

After the Sun had set, the layer of cloud on the horizon seemed to thicken, giving a very curious palette of shades of grey. There was still some light in the sky, but the ships waiting in the Channel floated against a somewhat uncanny background. The following are colour photos, I swear...