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| Electric car 1300 series (unit 1311) is exhibited in the Yokohama Tram Museum |
A long time has passed since I introduced streetcars exhibited in the Yokohama Tram Museum last time. Today, I'm going to continue to show you the other streetcar exhibited in the museum.
The electric car 1300 series was one of the main fleets owned by the Transportation Bureau of Yokohama City. 30 units in total were built by Kisha-kaisha in 1947. It was Yokohama's last streetcar, which a conductor was on board. In other words, the driver had to take the role of conductor as well later on this model. The 1300 series has a 13.62 meters-long and 2.48 meters-wide body with two bogies named Kisha-kaisha Type D14. The gauge size is 1,372 millimeters. There are six doors on the body. They are four sliding and two folding doors. The 1300 series can accommodate 120 passengers. I like the beige and light blue two-toned body. I think this color design gave local people hope for the future after the end of WWII. The 1300 series was about to retire in 1971 while it was missed by local people and rail-fans.
Incidentally, Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan. This mega-city once had an extensive tram network. The first route was opened in 1914 by Yokohama Electric Railway Company. Although the tram was a useful transportation means for local people, it was unfortunately abolished in 1972 due to heavy traffic congestion in the urban area. The representative streetcars are now preserved and exhibited in the Yokohama Tram Museum.
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| Interior of the electric car 1300 series (unit 1311) |