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Kurashiki, Okayama – April, 2025

I'd spent the night in Hiroshima, but was off early the next morning I shot off to Kurashiki, just in time to get to a Hard-Off at opening-o-clock. Check this thing that was on the shelf?

A Yamaha floppy-disk based MIDI jukebox!? Record your songs from your Piano to one of those Roland disk-based units and then play them back here! Or just have CANYON.MID on repeat. Anyway... back to the trains. I really do have a soft spot for the mustard-yellow 113/115/117s that run in the Setouchi area.

As for the new Yakumo... I like it, but I loved the retro colours more.

I was in-time for the next freight service...

Part Fukuyama Rail Express, part Super Rail Cargo, part Kuro Neko Yamato, part Air ... a bit of everything!

Mizushima Rinkai Railway

This cute little third-sector railway runs from Kurashiki Station down to Muzushima Station and beyond to the freight yards. It still exists thanks to the freight component and the requirement to transfer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries staff to their factories. Of course, normal passengers use the line too, but it's heavily subsidised. Thanks to Golden Week, there were no freight services operating when I visited.

I got on at Kurashiki City Station (it has its own name as it's not JR) and travelled to Yayoi Station to find a local Hard Off. It was a hefty walk in sub-par weather! Nothing to be found either.... well, nothing that would fit in my suitcase.

Instead, I just admired the variety of liveries operating on the line and then returned to Kurashiki Station to check into APA Hotel Kurashiki-Ekimae. This turned out to be one of the best afternoons of the trip!

I then realised that you could totally open the window!

And the photos from here on were fantastic.

Or I thought so anyway... Not much freight, again thanks to Golden Week, but a great array of West JR services.

And then it happened... I was distracted by a Yakumo and hadn't realised the freight chasing it.

I bolted downstairs to catch it waiting in the station yard for departure!

Yeeeeeeey! I hadn't expected this to run on the holidays! The earlier service was a no-show. As that I was already outside, I went over to the pedestrian bridge to check out the Mizushima Rinkai in the afternoon sunshine.

Very cute. Even funnier is the hotel...

Perfectly visible from the bridge... and... whoops... I left the window open?

I seem to be the only railfan in residence right now. I returned to the hotel to have a beer and enjoy the view.

The weather was pretty feral around lunch time, but as the clouds came and went things got better...

The room provided an amazing view of the railway to the west and, the best part?, the window opened!

The Mizushima Rinkai services came and went like clockwork as they had no other trains to compete with...

Many trains came and went, along with picturesque weather...

And then something special!...

A HD300 Hybrid off the Mizushima Rinkai Line! Even this was operating today? But at dusk-o-clock. Again, I ran downstairs.

And in terrible lighting I got to see the rolling rectangle up-close.

The night ended with a Sunrise Express passing through.

The morning saw more liveries on the Mizushima Rinkai and the Sunrise on its return voyage.

Also a lonely Fukuyama Rail Express not caring for public holidays.

I decided to go down track-side one final time as I was still a few hours away from check-out.

No freight, but lots of interesting passenger movements. Of course, it wasn't until I returned upstairs that another freight passed!

And that was that... I checked out and rode Kitty-chan home!

Next up was a day at USJ, but we don't need to discuss an ABSOLUTELY AMAZINGLY AWESOME theme park on this site, do we?