On July 10, Tobu Railway celebrated the 100th anniversary of the full-line opening of the Tojo Line. To commemorate this milestone, the company held several special events. Today, I’d like to share this topic with you.
Before that—if you feel something is strange about this anniversary, you must know a lot about Japanese railways. That’s right: I have already posted about the 100th anniversary of the Tojo Line. But that was eleven years ago. Please take a careful look at my previous post: it was not the 100th anniversary of the full-line opening, but of the partial opening of the Tojo Line.
Enough with the preamble. One highlight was a commemorative sticker mounted on the front of Set 51095 of the EMU 50090 series (see the top photo). The sticker features the number “100” (see the photo below). To avoid blown-out whites in the sticker image, I shot it with a narrower exposure.
For your information, the Tobu Tojo Line is one of the main transportation arteries in the metropolitan area. It began operation in 1914, connecting Ikebukuro in downtown Tokyo with Kawagoe City. The line was fully opened in 1925 between Ikebukuro and Yorii. Its total length is 75 kilometers, and it carries an average of one million passengers per day.
The 50090 series was launched in 2008 under the service name TJ Liner. Six sets (60 cars in total) were built by Hitachi. The trains are equipped with multi-purpose seats and feature a purple stripe along the sides—a symbol of Tobu’s premium commuter service.
