Thursday 19 December 2019

Good-bye to the EMU 40 Series

EMU Toei 40 series is displayed at East Garden station on the Ueno Zoo monorail line

On October 30th, the Transportation Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government suspended the operation of the Ueno Zoo monorail line due to aging of the rolling stock.

Ueno Zoo is Japan's oldest zoo opened in 1882. The Ueno Zoo monorail line was a means of transportation in the zoo. It is Japan's oldest monorail route opened in 1957. Connecting East and West Garden stations, its operating length is only 332 meters. The track was single and the electric system was 600 V DC. Learning from Wuppertaler Schwebebahn in Germany, it was constructed as a suspension monorail line. The vehicle was the 4th generation one called the EMU 40 series. Only one set was built by Nippon Sharyo in 2001, replacing the decrepit 3rd generation train called the EMU 30 series. The 40 series train was composed of two units named 40-1 and 40-2. Two 7.5 kW induction motors and the IGBT-VVVF inverter (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor - variable frequency drive) electric control system were on board.

I hastened to Ueno Zoo last month to say good-bye to the 40 series. It was still displayed at East Garden station. Many rail-fans and children were visiting there. They were worried about the future of the monorail line. I was also one of them, but there was no sense in my worrying, because the Transportation Bureau of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has not decided yet whether to maintain the monorail line or not.

Anyway, I enjoyed the zoo and got back home.

A gorilla meditates on the future of the Ueno Zoo monorail line

Official information about the last run event of  the Ueno Zoo monorail line (in Japanese):