Seibu Railway launched the 4th generation “L-train”. I’m going to show you this new wrapped train today.
Let me review “L-train” to start. L-train (Lions Train) is Seibu Railway's ad-wrapped train for the purpose of supporting their professional baseball team "Saitama Seibu Lions". The design of L-train is based on Legend Blue, which is the team color of Saitama Seibu Lions. The bodies of L-train are decorated with the team emblems and characters. Historically, the 1st generation L-train appeared in 2010 using the EMU 3000 series. The 2nd generation was then commissioned in 2016 using the EMU 9000 series. The 3rd generation debuted in 2018 using the EMU 20000 series.
On March 15th this year, trainset 40152 of the EMU 40000 series was commissioned as the 4th generation L-train. The 40000 series is Seibu's high-end commuter train launched in 2017. A total of 23 sets, 224 units, were built by Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The first batch 6 sets have multi-purpose seats, which a conductor can change from long seats to cross seats using a remote control; meanwhile, the second batch 17 sets, including trainset 40152 (L-train), have long seats only. I found that traditional Lions character “Leo” on the front of L-train. It’s same as the EMU 8500 series on the Seibu-Yamaguchi line. Leo, how have you been? It’s been a while.
Incidentally, I remembered that trainset 40152 was once used as the other ad-wrapped trains named "Kanahei" and “Moi! Moomin Hanno”. Trainset 40152 is always busy for promoting tourism to the Seibu lines.
