Heritage Railways (part 2)

Feature

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 200230 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Steam Preservation on the Oigawa Railway

Akira Shirai

Class C56 running along Oi River through plantation of green tea (Author)

Oigawa Railway’s collection of steam locomotives (Author)

The Oigawa Railway is a small privaterailway based in central Honshu thatattracts some 200,000 visitors each yearto its five working steam locomotives andmany vintage passenger coaches. It alsooperates the Trust Train (See pp.28–29 inthis issure of JRTR) belonging to the JapanNational Trust.

Introduction

The Oigawa Railway is Japan’s firstheritage railway but it was first openedin 1927 to haul timber and carry materialsfor dam construction in central ShizuokaPrefecture. The single-track 3'6" gauge

line starts at Kanaya Town on the Tokaidomain line and runs 65 km inland toIkawa, following the course of the OiRiver. The line was originally steamworked but was fully electrified in 1949.It has 75 tunnels and a 100-m high bridgeand terminates 670 m above sea level atIkawa Station. The last 25 km of the linerunning through the mountainous regionis known as the Ikawa Line and has ashort Abt rack-and-pinion section. TheIkawa Line section was completed in1954. The entire 65-km route betweenKanaya and Ikawa carries 1 millioncommuters and sightseers using regularelectric and diesel railcars, but the first40 km from Kanaya also carries 200,000annual visitors on its famous steam-hauled preserved vintage trains.

Start of Steam Working

In 1970, a local railway near the OigawaRailway was planning to scrap an oldBritish Dübs Class 2100 0-6-2 tankengine built in 1892. Many local peopleand employees of the Oigawa Railway,including myself, regretted the demise ofthis old workhorse so we decided to buyand preserve it in working order.After this initial preservation, in 1976, weadded a Class C56 2-6-0 tender enginefrom Thailand to our collection andstarted irregular steam operations on thefirst 39.5 km of the Oigawa Line.

Steam Operation Today

Today, we have five steam locomotives thatall work the main line and four others thatare not used for services (Table 1). The fivedifferent locomotives operate in all seasonsmaking up to three round trips each dayhauling three to seven coaches. The one-way trip takes 80 minutes and all seats arereserved. There is also a coach withJapanese-style tatami mats and an

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 2002 31Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

The Ikawa Line crossing a dam lake (Author)Electric locomotive belonging to Enshu Railway built in 1925 by English Electric andNorth British (Author)

observation car. Sometimes, the trains aredouble- or triple-headed.These tourist trains help promotesightseeing in a region that is famous forits Japanese tea plantations.

Crews, Traditions andMaintenance

Many of our older train crews came to

us with traditional skills learned fromJapanese National Railways (JNR) andthey have passed their knowledge on toyoung crew members who now form thecore of the workforce with 20 to 30 yearsof experience.Some of the more traditional skills likefireman require physical toughness tooand it is difficult to find men willing tobear the extreme heat on the footplate,

especially during the hot and humidJapanese summers. Our sister railway,the Alishan Forest Railway in Taiwan, hashad the same problems. We fire theboiler with bricks made from high-qualitycoal imported from Vietnam andAustralia mixed with block coal—wenever burn coke or oil. One hazard ofrunning a steam train blowing soot andsparks through forested mountains is thatwe sometimes cause smuts on dryinglaundry and even an occasional forestfire! This explains why the normalelectric train services running on thesame track always carry water toextinguish any trackside fires. We don’tuse poor-quality coal because it causesproblems with ignition, sparks, etc. Theworkshop installs new fire grates every20 years.Although our workshop has only the mostbasic machinery, we can handle prettywell every inspection and repair. Forexample, we still temper pins in thetraditional way using potassium cyanide;a British visitor told me that our shop isalmost identical to some found on somesmall preservation railways in England.To reduce scaling, we soften the boilerfeedwater using ion-exchange resin andwe also inject chemicals. We never domass blowing but we do flush the boilerseach month.

Type Class Year built Builders Former owners Wheel arrangement

C108 C10 1930 Kawasaki Sharyo, Ltd. Government railways 2-6-4 tank

C11227 C11 1942 Nippon Sharyo, Ltd. Government railways 2-6-4 tank

C11312 C11 1946 Nippon Sharyo, Ltd. Government railways 2-6-4 tank

C12164 C12 1937 Nippon Sharyo, Ltd. Government railways 2-6-2 tank

C5644 C56 1935 Mitsubishi Heavy Government railways to 2-6-0 tenderIndustries, Ltd. Thai National Railway

1275 1275 1912 Koppel Government railways to 0-6-0 tankNippon Stainless Co., Ltd.

1 - 1911 Koppel Ichihata Railway to 0-6-0 tankSumitomo Cement Co., Ltd.

49616 9600 1910 Kawasaki Government railways 2-8-0 tenderShipbuilding, Ltd.

2109 2100 1891 Dübs Government railways to 0-6-2 tankSeno Railway

Table 1 Oigawa Railway’s Steam Locomotive Collection

Heritage Railways (part 2)

Japan Railway & Transport Review 31 • June 200232 Copyright © 2002 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Akira Shirai

Mr Shirai joined Nagoya Railroad in 1948 after graduating from Nagoya Technical College. He

joined Oigawa Railway in 1969 becoming Chief Engineer and Vice President in 1987. He is now

Consultant to Oigawa Railway.

Dübs 0-6-2 tank engine on British Ransoms and Rapier turntable. The engine is now preserved at Nippon Instituteof Technology. (Author)

Other Preserved Infrastructure

In addition to the preserved rolling stock,the Oigawa Railway also has an old BritishRansoms and Rapier turntable built in1897—it is 50-ft long, can take a load of90 tonnes and is still in working order.Enshu Railway and JR East’s Iida Line nearus also have two electric locomotives builtby English Electric and North British in1926. I have loved them both since mychildhood.

Sister Railways

In addition to promoting local tourism inShizuoka, we are also proud of ourinternational sister railways—the BrienzRothorn Railway in Switzerland and theAlishan Forest Railway in Taiwan. Wehold exchange visits with both railwayseach year in the spirit of friendship andcooperation. By the way, in the samespirit of friendship, we would welcomeinformation about possible sources ofcompressors—ours are showing their age.

The Future

Although our equipment, infrastructure(and some staf f ) are old and wesometimes face practical and financialdifficulties in keeping our preservedrolling stock in working order, thecontinued enthusiasm of our 200,000annual visitors for these relics of a bygoneage, fills me with hope that we shall beab le t o con t inue showing newgenerations of engineers the excitementof steam! �

This article was first presented at the internationalconference ‘Slow Train Coming: Heritage Railways inthe 21st Century,’ held in York in September 2001.

Oigawa Railway steam train running through very rare snowfall (Author)