Tuesday 23 June 2020

EMU 80000 Series: New Model on the Shin-Keisei Line

80016F of the EMU Shin-Keisei 80000 series arrives at Minoridai station

Shin-Keisei (New Keisei) Electric Railway launched their new commuter train, the EMU 80000 series, for the first time in 14 years. The first set named 80016F was built by Nippon Sharyo, and launched on December 27th, 2019.

The 80000 series is a sister train of the EMU Keisei 3100 series, which was also launched in 2019. Shin-Keisei is an affiliate firm of Keisei Electric Railway Company. The two companies introduced similar models around the same time to save the development and manufacturing costs. The 80000 series and the 3100 series have the same stainless steel bodies with the same designs. Both the 80000 series and the 3100 series have brand new SiC-VVVF (silicon carbide-variable frequency drive) inverter electric control systems. The new system on the 80000 series comes with a nineteen-percent improvement in its electric power consumption performance over the previous IGBT-VVVF inverter electric control system on the Shin-Keisei N800 series.

On the contrary, the specifications of the above two models are slightly different. The Shin-Keisei 80000 series is a 6-car train consisting of four motorcars and two trailers; meanwhile the Keisei 3100 series is an 8-car train consisting of six motorcars and two trailers. The former has flip-up type luggage storage on each car and a free Wi-Fi system on the train; meanwhile the latter doesn't have those. The former has Mitsubishi's 155kW induction motors; meanwhile, the latter has Toyo's 140kW induction motors.

Shin-Keisei plans to introduce the second set of the 80000 series in the fiscal year 2021.

80016F of the EMU Shin-Keisei 80000 series leaves Minoridai station

Official information about the trains on the Shin-Keisei line (in Japanese):