You may remember when I posted about the name change of the Tobu-Noda line in before. Japan's population has entered into a decreasing phase. Railway companies are in competition to attract passengers and have to improve the value of their lines. For that purpose, Tobu Railway gave a nickname of their "Noda line" to "Urban Park line" in 2014. What do you think about the new name, “Urban Park line”? Is it sophisticated? To be honest, I wonder why Japanese people are eager to use English words for their shops', restaurants' and companies' names... even for railway stations' and railway lines' names.
Enough with the preamble, let's get down to the main topic. I recently understood that Tobu continues improving the value of their lines very seriously. Not only just the name of the line but also the train itself on the line. In token of that, Tobu launched a new sophisticated commuter train, the EMU 80000 series, onto their Urban Park line this year. It's been 12 years since the last model, the EMU 60000 series, debuted. What’s special about the 80000 series? It has an area for families with children. There is a unique seat with a baby stroller parking area named “Tanoseat” (see the photo below). Tanoseat is a compound word of Tanoshii (fun) in Japanese and Seat in English. A family gets together at Tanoseat, it will be so much fun. I’m running out of space on the page. With regard to the technical specifications of the 80000 series, I’m going to post near future.
