 |
| A unique soft drink vending machine, Keikyu Yokohama station |
As I posted before, Japan is a country of vending machines. There are over five million vending machines in this country. You can find a number of different machines everywhere. They sell railway tickets, soft drinks, snacks, noodles, rice, stamps, newspapers, magazines, batteries, and even paper fortunes in shrines.
I recently found a unique vending machine on the platform of Yokohama station on the Keikyu main line. It looks just like a soft drink vending machine, but its design is quite unique. It was based on a front face of a Keikyu train. Which train is the model of this machine? The answer is the EMU Type 1800. The Type 1800 belongs to the EMU 1000 series. The technical specifications of the Type 1800 are the same as the other 1000 series trains, but its outer design is slightly different from the other 1000 series. Please look at the photos. You can see a gangway on the middle of the front face of the Type 1800.
The Type 1800 was launched in 2016 as Keikyu's first stainless-steel train. Only three sets of 4-car trains were built by J-TREC Yokohama factory. Because of its gangway position, the Type 1800 can be coupled with each other to make an 8-car train. This coupled train is suitable for direct operation onto the Toei-Asakusa subway line, as passengers can easily evacuate from the train through these gangways in case of emergency in the subway tunnels.
Lastly, the photo of the real Type 1800 is shown below.
 |
| Type 1800 of the EMU Keikyu 1000 series travels on the Daishi line |