On April 1st, Shin-Keisei Electric Railway Company was merged by Keisei Electric Railway Company. How are the ex-Shin-Keisei and Keisei lines going? I recently visited these lines and saw them with my own eyes.
To start, let me review Shin-Keisei Electric Railway Company (hereafter Shin-Keisei). It was established in 1946 as an affiliate firm of Keisei Electric Railway Company (hereafter Keisei). Shin-Keisei fully opened a 26.5-kilometer-long railway route between Matsudo and Keisei-Tsudanuma in 1955. Shin-Keisei then became a fully owned subsidiary of Keisei in 2022 through a share exchange. This year, Keisei absorbed Shin-Keisei and became the larger Keisei Electric Railway Co., Ltd. It's expected to maximize synergies by making faster decisions. The new name of the ex-Shin-Keisei line is the “Keisei-Matsudo line”.
Now, let's head to the main topic. I found that the body colors of the trains on the Keisei-Matsudo line started changing. Please look at the top photo. It’s trainset 8807 of the EMU 8800 series. It was pink and white two-toned in the Shin-Keisei era but is now light gray color with red and blue-colored stripes, so-called “Keisei color”. This color change will be applied to all the ex-Shin-Keisei trains little by little. On the other hand, the changes of the Keisei lines were small. New railway maps including the "Matsudo line” were put up in the trains and the stations. Also, I came across a train displaying the commemoration plate on the front (see the photo below). It’s trainset 3030 of the EMU 3000 series. The plate says, “Hello Matsudo line”.
