Japanese Railway Freight Timetables

18Sep/180

Japanese Railway Freight Timetables

These are the freight watchers guide to Japan. They include both JR Freight and private companies. I've previously used them to chase The Gakunan Railway, the Seino Railway (Minoakasaka) and the Chichubu Railway. Oh! Also the M250 Super Rail Cargo run by Sagawa Transport! (also see here) .. I recently picked up the latest copy...

Anyway, I looked at my shelf recently and realised I've got the collection from 2010 through to 2018! All of these have either been ordered from Shosen Books in Akihabara, or direct from the author website.

In each of them, if bought brand new, you get a calendar and the run diagrams. These diagonally plotted timetables show you the train paths and their layovers. It's really handy to find the places with the most crosses. Actually, I used the same mechanism when chasing The Southern Spirit here in Australia.

Note to the left is the main freight timetable from 1964 when the railways made the huge final switch from Steam to Electric/Diesel. It's known as yon-san-tou... (4,3,10) which translates to: October 1968, i.e. the 10th month of the 43rd year of Showa. At some point I want to actually compare large chunks of the timetables to see if there's any interesting correlations.

Until then, the goal is to just chase more freight in Japan! If you need a hand with information that might be available in these timetables, then drop a comment below.