I sometimes come across petrol transportation trains running through the metropolitan area. Pulled by electric locomotives, they flash past me in the blink of an eye and soon disappear among clusters of urban buildings. Today, I’d like to share a little about these petrol transportation trains.
There are several oil refineries in and around the metropolitan area — for example, in Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Chiba cities. Do you know how refined petrol is carried to the regions where it’s consumed? The main transport methods are coastal tankers, tank trucks, and petrol transportation trains.
These trains mainly operate toward inland regions such as Gunma, Yamanashi, and Nagano prefectures. The Type TaKi1000 is well known as the petrol transportation freight car. It was introduced in 1993 to replace the older Type TaKi43000. A total of 1,008 cars were built by Nippon Sharyo and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, all belonging to JR Freight’s railyards.
The green-colored cars are owned by Japan Oil Transportation Company (see the top photo), while the dark blue ones belong to Japan Oil Terminal & Logistics Company (see the photo below). The most notable feature of the TaKi1000 is its high speed — 95 kilometers per hour. It may not sound very fast, but please remember that Japan’s inland railways run through many mountainous areas, and the track gauge is only 1,067 millimeters — a narrow gauge.
If you’re interested in the locomotives that haul these trains, please have a look at my previous posts, where I introduced the Class EH200, EF210 and EF210-300.
