Wow, I Basically Forgot The Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen In My Run-down At The End! But Yes, It Is A Complicated

Schirmeck castle

Overseeing the valley of Schirmeck, the castle, built for the Bishop of Strasbourg in the 13th century, is a short walk and climb from the town centre. As it was designed to protect a corner of the territory, that's apparently where we get the term: Schirm'eck. It was defeated by the Swedish during the Thirty-Years War, with some of the stone from the ruins being used to build other structures, such as the church.

Today, there's obviously not much of it left, though a square tower was restored and houses a small museum (closed when I visited). The Yoshi art was probably not part of the original episcopal aesthetic...

Golden Week has begun in Japan, and this quick succession of public holidays ends with Children's Day on 5 May. It's for this occasion that the koinobori, or carp streamers, are brought out. Here are some flying over Asuka-gawa in Kashihara during my visit in 2018, with Unebi-yama, at the base of which Kashihara-jingû is located, in the background below.

My part of France is also on school break. With my homework done, it's time to get out and about again for my own Golden Week!

I sighted this Vectron at Karlsruhe: a Dual Mode, which can move either with its Diesel engine or getting its energy from the overhead wires (German 15 kV AC only for now). However, it only delivers a third of the power of a standard all-electric Vectron, and is therefore not designed for main line hauling, and is expected to be more at home near sorting yards. Deutsche Bahn have also bought some of these as ICE rescue locomotives, serving when a train breaks down.

For Vectron!

Produced since 2010 by Siemens, the Vectron is a modular locomotive platform with various engine options - AC electric, quad-voltage for use across Europe, "last-mile Diesel" option for parking, Diesel motors, dual mode/hybrid... It hauls both freight and passenger trains. But the main reason I've wanted to mention the Vectron is...

this Mitchell and Webb sketch!

This is from series 3 of That Mitchell and Webb Look, which was aired in 2009. The Siemens Vectron was officially launched in 2010, so it's fair to say that the name appearing in both is a coincidence. However, when I see a Vectron, it reminds me of this sketch, so it's harder for me to take this train seriously!

But it is serious business, as it is one of the most common locos in continental Europe. Only Iberia (due to using a different gauge) and France (because if it ain't Alstom, they'll oust 'em) don't see much of them. The examples shown here are from Germany, Switzerland and Slovakia, and were all pictured in the same area of Germany. The quad-voltage version in particular allows companies to carry freight all over Europe, they're virtually borderless.

Yet here I am, still snickering at the name, by Vectron's beard!

Can't read my, can't read my, No you can't read my 岡 face!

I promised more impressive views from the hills above Toba, and here they are. They're not very hard to reach: the Hiyoriyama circuit is only a couple of kilometres long around the station and involves climbing around 50 m. Hinoyama is further away, further South and a little higher.

The views of the coastline at Toba were good enough for Hiroshige to use in his Famous Views from the Sixty-Odd Provinces to illustrate Shima province (though there wasn't much else, I presume, Shima province was tiny, it was just Toba and the neighbouring town of Shima - also Shima is 志摩 and not 島 "island").

Beyond the islands near Toba, lies the mainland again, the Southern part of Aichi prefecture across the Ise Bay (Minamichita and Tahara), which the car ferry in the above picture traverses.

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.

Climbing Toba Hinoyama

The road (and I guess that is the only downside: it is a road all the way) to the top of Hinoyama starts with the welcoming entrance to Jôan-ji temple.

After some 800 m uphill, past a rather large resort hotel, a chance for a break appears: a viewpoint with a camera stand (which may have been the first time I noticed one! very handy for group shots, though I was alone of course), and an art garden called Medaka no Gakkô, or the school of rice fish. Not knowing that at the time (I looked it up for this piece!), I didn't notice the fish, but I did notice the art and the wisteria in full bloom.

Most of the climbing is done at this point, and it's only another 300 m to the entrance to the shrines at the top of Hinoyama. Shrines, plural, and of various sizes, as the modest Hakuryû Inari-jinja sits next to the grander Toba branch of Kotohira-gû.

On the right, at the bottom of the stairs of Kotohira-gû, one finds the donors' board, and an inviting path... to the views shown in the previous post.

The "Witch's Eye" - Engelbourg Castle ruins, Thann

For what it's worth, Prince Albert II of Monaco is visiting Thann in the South of Alsace this weekend, as he is also Count of Ferrette. Held by the Austrian Habsburgs for a while, the title was bestowed upon Cardinal Mazarin, a prime minister to King Louis XIV, following the French conquest of Alsace in the 1640s. A member of House Mazarin married the Prince of Monaco in 1777 and that's how the title ended up where it is today. I don't plan to explain the origin of the other bazillion oddball titles the Prince of Monaco holds...

It's just a pretext to mention Engelbourg Castle, built by the Counts of Ferrette in the 13th century on a hill above Thann. The French Counts wouldn't benefit from it for too long: as it lay too far from the German border to be of strategic value, the same Louis XIV ordered its demolition in 1673. But, as you can probably tell from the photo, something weird happened during the process. The cylindrical dungeon came apart in segments, and one of these landed on its side. For whatever reason, it was left there, creating a unique landmark known as the "Witch's Eye", as an echo to the "Witch's Tower" in the town of Thann, but all it reminds me of is Polo mints.

A short hike uphill from Thann, it also offers nice views of the valley and the vineyards on the neighbouring hills.

@chitaka45 just published some gorgeous photos of Shinsen-en in the snow (I love their photos in general BTW, Kyoto's shrines and temples in all their glory!). I found this place by chance while walking to Nijô-jô in 2016 - different season, different colours.

Part garden, part temple, part shrine, Shinsen-en dates back to the start of the Heian period, when it was an Imperial property. One of its most distinctive features is the Dragon Boat, which apparently serves for Moon viewing events. Several Japanese seasonal traditions, like Moon viewing and cherry blossom viewing, are said to originate in Heian-period Kyôto.

The trains the E10 will replace

Following the announcement of a new Shinkansen type due to enter service on the Tôhoku Shinkansen in 2030, let's have a quick look at the oldest trains on the line, that will be replaced.

The E2 is the oldest high-speed train type that JR East owns, and many examples have already been retired. Built for the slower Jôetsu route to Niigata, they operate the Yamabiko and all-stop Nasuno services.

The E10s will also replace E5 sets. This sounds unreal to me, the E5 is the pinnacle of Shinkansen, still the only train running at 320 km/h in Japan (coupled with the E6, when the couplings work), and still young, having been introduced in 2011! Granted, by 2030, the first E5s will be nearly 20 years old, but they're probably not going to disappear completely in one go.

Photos taken at Utsunomiya station (as far North as I've ever been in Japan).