After enjoying the Joso line, I visited Kantetsu's other route, the Ryugasaki line. It's been eight years since I took this short local line in Ibaraki Prefecture. What did I find?
To start, let me quickly review the Ryugasaki line. It's a 4.5 kilometer-long route connecting Sanuki and Ryugasaki stations. Sanuki is a transfer station to JR East's Joban line. JR East recently changed its station name from Sanuki to Ryugasaki-shi (Ryugasaki City) corresponding to the request by Ryugasaki City, so, there are both Ryugasaki and Ryugasaki-shi stations in the city. They are so alike that I sometimes can't tell which is which. There's no use complaining about it. The Ryugasaki line is a 1,067 millimeter-gauge un-electrified single track. Diesel railcars are operated every half an hour.
Returning to the main topic, I found that the coloring design of KiHa 2002 of the KiHa 2000 series had been changed from Kantetsu's standard design to a "Mairyu" design to promote tourism to the city. Mairyu is a mascot character of Ryugasaki City. Mairyu means "dancing dragon", who likes local traditional dancing named "Tsukumai". We can see Mairyu and local specialties on the body of KiHa 2002. These illustrations were drawn by Art Club members of Nakanedai Junior High School in the city. Incidentally, KiHa 2002 was built as the second diesel railcar of the KiHa 2000 series by Niigata Tekko in 1997. It's similar to the KiHa 2100 series on the Joso line, but the KiHa 2000 series has doorsteps for lower platforms.
