Recently, there are many topics for non-rail-fans, so, I'm going to show you a topic for old-school trainspotters today. That's the EMU JR East E233-8500 series operated on the Nambu line.
To start, let me quickly review the Nambu line. It's a transportation artery in the eastern part of Kanagawa Prefecture and the Tama area of Tokyo Metropolis. Connecting Kawasaki and Tachikawa, its route length is 45 kilometers. The track is double and electrified with 1,500V DC. 6-car trains are operated every 2 to 8 minutes. The rollingstock on the line is the EMU E233-8000 series with only one exception.
Let's get down to the main topic. To operate the Nambu line on timetable, 36 train-sets in total are commissioned on the line. They all look the same, but there is one train-set of exception if you observe them carefully. That's the EMU E233-8500 series. The rare E233-8500 series has door switches on the side bodies; meanwhile, the major E233-8000 series doesn't have them. Why? The rare E233-8500 series was originally operated on the Ome and Itsukaichi lines, where passengers opened and closed the doors by themselves using door switches. After transferring to the Nambu line in 2017, these door switches haven't been used anymore; however, they still remain. On the other hand, the major E233-8000 series doesn't have door switches on the side bodies, because it was originally built for the Nambu line, where conductors open and close the doors.
