On October 14th, 2024, Seibu Railway celebrated the 55th anniversary of their Chichibu line. In commemoration, several events are held by the company.
Let me review the Seibu-Chichibu line to start. It’s a mountainous railway penetrating Chichibu Mountains, which is situated in the northwestern part of the metropolitan area. Connecting Agano and Seibu-Chichibu, the route length is 19 kilometers. The track is mostly single and electrified at 1,500 V DC. The gauge size is 1,067 millimeters. The route was opened on the 14th of October 1969 to transport tourists and cement. For your information, Mt. Buko in the Chichibu area is famous for producing limestone, which is a material of cement. The limited express train “Laview (EMU 001 series)” and the standard train “EMU 4000 series” are mainly commissioned on the line.
Let’s head to the main topic. Seibu started to operate the 55th anniversary train of the Seibu-Chichibu line on November 11th of 2024. It’s a red and white-colored train using trainset 4017 of the EMU 4000 series. According to Seibu, the color design of the anniversary train was taken from the Class E851, which was retired from the Seibu-Chichibu line in 1996. The E851 was a Bo+Bo+Bo-type direct current electric locomotive with six 425kW DC motors. It could tow 1,000-tonned cement cargo trains by double heading. You can imagine what the E851 looked like from the imitation exhibited in Seibu-Chichibu station (see the photo below). The E851 is on our left.
Congratulations on the 55th anniversary of the Seibu-Chichibu line!
