What are the joys of railway travelling? For me, one is "ekiben", which is a lunch box sold at train stations, and another one is passing scenery from train windows. Today, I'm posting about the latter.
The EMU Seibu 4000 series is a standard local train operated on the Chichibu line in the countryside of the metropolitan area. It was commissioned in 1988 for direct operation between the Seibu-Chichibu line and the Chichibu main line of Chichibu Railway. It's still a main fleet on the Chichibu line. Different from the other Seibu commuter trains, which have commonplace long-seats, the 4000 series has comfortable cross-seats and large windows to capture the beautiful outside. I definitely prefer cross-seat trains to long-seat ones. Taking in the view is the great pleasure of railway travelling for me; however, ...
Seibu Railway recently made a press release announcing that approximately 100 units of used trains will be moved from Tokyu Railways and Odakyu Electric Railway in the near future. Among these trains, the Tokyu 9000 series is planned to be introduced onto the Chichibu line. The Tokyu 9000 series is high performance and energy saving cars, but urban commuter trains. Regrettably, its seats are mostly long-seats. It isn’t designed to evoke feeling of travel.
On January 11th, the first retiree of the 4000 series, namely set 4015, disappeared from the commercial line. The remaining 11 sets will also be retired step by step. The final chapter of the 4000 Series has started. Time will quickly pass me by.
