Y012F of the EMU Yokohama Minato Mirai Railway Y000 series, "Sheep Train"
On March 29th, 2020, Yokohama Minato Mirai Railway launched a special poster train named "Sheep Train" on their Kodomonokuni line. The purpose of the poster train is to promote tourism to Kodomonokuni (the Children's Land), which is an amusement park located in Yokohama City, some 30 kilometers west of Tokyo.
Yokohama Minato Mirai Railway offered one set of their 2-car train, Y012F of the EMU Y000 series, for the poster train. We can see cute images of sheep both on the bodies and the interior of the trains. Each car depicts a sheep in the outer design; meanwhile the pastures with sheep are drawn in the interior. Needless to say, there are many sheep in Kodomonokuni.
Incidentally, the Kodomonokuni line is a short (3.4 kilometers) single track railway connecting Kodomonokuni and Nagatsuta on the Tokyu Denentoshi and JR East Yokohama lines. The train on the Tokyu-Denentoshi line is directly operated onto the Kodomonokuni line, when a special event is held on the line. The Kodomonokuni line was opened in 1967 as an access railway to Kodomonokuni. The owner of the line is Yokohama Minato Mirai Railway; meanwhile, the trains are operated by Tokyu Railways.
The Y000 series was built by Tokyu Sharyo, and launched in 1999 as the fifth generation train on the Kodomonokuni line. Currently, three sets (six units) of the Y000 series are operated on the line. They are a standard colored train, the Sheep poster train and the Cow poster train.
Interior of "Sheep Train"