Sorry for jumping from one topic to another, but today I’d like to return to my recent family trip to Niigata Prefecture and share one of its highlights with you.
I think there are many fireworks festivals in your country. There are also many in Japan, especially in summer. Watching fireworks in the evening breeze is one of the pleasures of summer in Japan.
Nagaoka, the second-largest city in Niigata Prefecture, is famous for its large fireworks festival. The festival began as a way to commemorate the victims of World War II and pray for peace. Just look at the photo below. You can see the beautiful round shapes and brilliant blue and pink colors. How wonderful it is to live in peace!
Of course, I can’t end this post without mentioning the railway side of things—after all, this is a railway blog.
To enjoy the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival, the nearest station is Nagaoka Station on JR East’s Joetsu Shinkansen. It’s about 270 km from Tokyo, and the journey takes only about an hour and a half.
What’s new with the Joetsu Shinkansen?
I found that the Joetsu Shinkansen fleet now consists entirely of Series E7 EMUs (see the photo above). The older models—Series 200, E1, E2 and E4—have already been retired from service on the Joetsu Shinkansen. Furthermore, the special-liveried Series E7 EMUs (Sets F21 and F22), which had an additional pink stripe, have returned to the standard livery.
Operating a single train model on the Joetsu Shinkansen certainly looks efficient and cost-effective. But for a train enthusiast like me, it feels like something is missing. You know how train enthusiasts are.
