Do you remember when I posted that Tokyu Railways would transfer their EMU 9000 series trains to Seibu Railway? What happened to that matter? I’m going to update this topic today.
Many rail-fans reported that some sets of the Tokyu 9000 series had already been retired from the track. They are probably being prepared for moving to Seibu Railway.
The next question is “Who will be the successor of the 9000 series on the Tokyu lines?” The answer is the EMU 6020 series. Please look at the top photo. You can see the new 6020 series debuted this year. Are there any differences between the existing and the new 6020 series? Yes. The existing 6020 series is composed of 7 cars including one Q SEAT car. They are operated as express trains on the Ooimachi and the Den-en-toshi lines. On the other hand, the new 6020 series is composed of 5 cars without a Q SEAT car. They are operated as local trains. In order to make it easy to distinguish between the existing and the new 6020 series, the latter is named 6020-6050 series (6020 series, type 6050).
I found celebration stickers displayed on both ends of trainset 6151 of the 6020-6050 series. One is written in Japanese (the top photo), another one is in English (the photo below). Both stickers were designed by Mizonokuchi train crew base staff. The train is winking at people (the photo below). Tokyu plans to introduce a total of 18 sets of the 6020-6050 series within 3 years.
