Melbourne BG SCS Train Timetable 
Power Macintosh Graphite G4 – PCI Cards
This thing has a lot of room for expandability, so I went rummaging through my spares box for PCI cards that might fit. Actually, I managed to find a FireWire card on the same day I bought the ATI 9250 AGP Graphics Card, so I had that to test also. This Apple failed to come with an AirPort PCMCIA card, so I also wanted to get wireless working without paying for premium Apple devices.
ASUS WL-138G V2
I had a TP-Link something-something box in my stash and googled to see if there were any drivers. Nothing good came up and I thought I was out of luck. I had actually bought this from the markets years ago and never used it... in fact, I never even opened the box. You can imagine my surprise when I found this inside instead!
Haha... winner... this sure isn't a TP-Link!
The best point is this... the bloody thing just worked! At first, I hardly got any signal... but then I realised I didn't have the antenna screwed on :)
Done... does wonders for my limited supply of Ethernet ports.
No-Name FireWire Card KWE582
And again, from the category of 'just works'... this FireWire card happily let my iSight Camera function as expected.
Totally no-name... can't even find a brand.
I actually don't even need the ports... but hey, there are spare PCI slots to fill! The last shot above shows my iSight looking towards the machine working perfectly in iChat. Will need to find if Photo Booth is available for 10.4.6?
Adaptec AIC-7880P
This SCSI card will let me use more internal and external drives, but I really don't need them. Despite this, I think it'll still be fun to test. I've a hunch that it's actually a fake card as the only identifier is the chipset number. Adaptec doesn't name their cards after their chipsets... their cards all have individual codes!
Everything, again, just worked perfectly! My external SyQuest removable HDD worked perfectly showing my FAT32 drive in all its glory.
Unknown VIA Chipset 'USB 1394'
This dual USB/Firewire card looked promising... but prevented the entire machine from even booting. It seems to also need an auxiliary power connector in the form of a floppy drive power cable. I wasn't overly fussed to hack up a power cable to test this out, so I wrote the whole card off... don't bother with them! (Or.. tell me if your version actually works?)
Swann 3-port Firewire (Lucent FW232)
This card worked perfectly. The iSight had no issues with it and OSX just used it as expected. I really didn't need 3 more firewire ports, but what the heck?
I'll add more as I find more cards to test...
Power Macintosh Graphite G4 – ATI Radeon 9250
My recently acquired Power Mac G4 was originally spec'd with an Nvidia GeForce, but instead came with an ATI Rage Pro 128. I therefore started researching my options for a graphics card upgrade. Most 'apple-designed' items, that would work out of the box, would cost an arm and a leg, so I ventured deeper into the web and came to the understanding that PC cards could be flashed to work on Apples!
Which cards?
Good question. Some people have had luck with the NVidia GeForce range, whilst others have succeeded with the ATI Radeon chipset. There's a good compatibilty chart here at The Mac Elite which will show you the series and then any required modifications.
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9250 128mb
I happened across an ATI Radeon 9250 AGP with 128mb of RAM at trash and treasure on the weekend for a few dollars and my decision was therefore made for me. The VGA port was dangling and needed whatever screws I could find to secure it.. and well, it was cheap.
Quick research showed that the basic process is to first flash it in a compatible PC, disable pins 3+11 and then shift some resistors. The pin disablement is required as the Macintosh actually uses these to send 25v over it's proprietary ADC port to power an Apple Display. AGP 1x originally didn't require these pins and so Apple hijacked them. Plugging an AGP 4x/8x card into an apple expecting a 1x card will prevent the machine from booting and possibly cause other hardware damage.
Flashing with a Macintosh ROM
Thanking The Mac Elite once more, they have a great flashing tutorial here. Firstly, you'll need a ROM, so follow the links and agree to the disclaimers. Note that the 9250 driver is actually not 'official'. It's a modified version that has the device IDs hacked in to allow this card to work. You'll find 3 ROMs for the 9250 over there. A 'full' version and 2 reduced versions. The latter are smaller versions of the original ROM file, allowing it to fit on cards with smaller flash memory. Actually, there's a whole article on reduced ROMs here. I'd read on a forum of a success story with the 'Reduced TOME ROM', so I chose that.
Finding ATIFlash actually became quite a challenge... the tools available for ATI Flashing were all windows-based and the DOS version was nowhere to be found. I tried Archive.org, but the links were all dynamic and wouldn't give me an older version. Googling then provided me with a link to a newer version of the DOS ATIFlash tool. I managed to get it onto a bootable floppy, with both of the ROMs to test and ... well ... each attempt resulted in: Adapter Not Found. The tool couldn't find my AGP card!?!
At this point I had two options... Keep scouring the web for an ancient version of ATIFlash (v3.10 is the version everyone seems to prefer) or try the windows versions... I actually did try the latter, but my test PC only had Win98SE and the app needed Windows 7 at a minimum. I therefore kept digging and found other versions of ATIFlash! Finally, v3.10. It still didn't work... so instead of wasting hours to get Windows 7 up and running, I chose to force the flash. Using atiflash -f -p [CARD_IDX] [ROM_FILE], things started happening!
Finally, we have a successful flash and it's actually now listing the card and the ROM information correctly. NOTE: The screenshot above shows ATIFLA2.EXE... this is v3.10. ATIFLASH.EXE is v4.17, the first version I tried.
Disabling pins 3 and 11
The Mac Elite has a great write-up on this requirement. As mentioned, these two pins were used to provide power to an ADC monitor. Later on, AGP 8x came along and used these pins for something else. Since my card is an 8x card, the pins are 'in-use' and therefore the Macintosh wasn't happy with this at all. In fact, it wouldn't power up with the card inserted nakedly into the slot. Fortunately, the fix is simples... grab some sticky-tape and cut it into thin slices and insulate the pins.
To stop the tape from sliding when the card is inserted, wrap it half way around the edge. Don't go all the way around though, as you'll disable other pins on the other side of the connector.
At this point I tested it out... I was curious to see if the machine would even power up.
It did!... but the frequency was totally out-of-whack. That last shot is of me going back to the PC to check if I could write the other 'full' ROM as I'd thought a bad ROM write was to blame. It didn't let me and I was about to despair, before I remembered that I still had to hack resistors to switch this card into Mac Mode.
ATI 9250 'Macintosh Mode'
The 9250 needs a further 'Macintosh Mode' hack. It seems that the card has soldered jumpers to configure it as either Macintosh or PC. This link at The Mac Elite has an example of what resistors to change... but my card wasn't 100% identical. I took a flying leap and guessed that the resistors in the same area provided the same purpose. This, thankfully, turned out to be correct!
So, the card was on the workbench, the soldering iron was ready, and I had assumed that the 'block of three' resistors was the top 3 of 4 in that upper area and the '2 pair' was the obvious 2-pair below. Fortunately, the first 2 of 3 of the top block were already in the correct location; I just had to shift the last one. Removal was easy: I tinned the soldering iron and just heated up the SMD resistor until it lifted and stuck to the tip. After this I cleaned the pads ready for the switched resistors.
Of course, I couldn't be assed trying to put the tiny SMD resistors back; there's really no need. They're actually just jumpers or 0 ohm resistors providing links between two solder pads. I therefore just grabbed a nearby full-size resistor and bent its leg to act as a jumper.
I tinned the end of the resistor and then soldered it in place.
From there, a nice set of sharp snips removed the excess and the short was in place!
One done, two more to go...
Before I knew it, all were done and it was time to test it out again...
With the card in place, you really have no idea if the sticky-tape insulating the pins has succeeded... but just turn it on anyway! Meanwhile, look at all those spare PCI slots! I'll get back to them later.
Haha! It just worked!
Software
Well... it nearly worked. The second monitor was maxing out at 640x480 and controls seemed limited. I assumed I needed some form of a real ATI driver, so I went searching. ATI/AMD actually has the drivers right here and installing them was a breeze. After a reboot, I had full resolution and the monitor model numbers were even showing up!
Success!
Shin-Osaka Webcam – Timetable
I'll update this as I add more services, but here's a list of trains that you can expect to see on the Shin-Osaka Webcam. I'll try and get the freight timetable in there ASAP. Note that the current data below is sourced from Google Maps. It is very up-to-the-minute and therefore will only show future departures!
Regarding the times above... the video is on the east side of the station, so anything heading west will actually appear sooner than the time indicated. The time is the departure time from Shin-Osaka Station, so anything heading east will depart the platforms as indicated. Take anywhere from a minute to 10 seconds off the time for trains heading west.
Unfortunately, the video cannot be embedded, so you'll have to practice alt-tabbing when required.
Here's a post on what you can expect to see on the camera. And here's a cool sighting of Doctor Yellow. Send messages through if you see interesting trains!
Movements of interest
The list below has been collated from either timetables or actually watching the camera. From my thread here, you'll start seeing the correlations, and my comments regarding, the movements that happen regularly and to the timetable.
| Description | Photos |
|---|---|
| DE10 Light Engine 0853, 0904 This timeslot allows a locomotive to travel light to fetch items from Kawasaki in Hyogo. See the next line for the return service. |
|
| DE10 with Kawasaki Consist 1358 (following above) This should be the same locomotive above (currently usually a DE10) returning with whatever it was sent to pick up. |
|
| Westbound Locomotive Balancing 1018 It seems that this freight train usually has two locomotives up front. Only one is needed, so it must be a balancing move. |
|
| Doctor Yellow のぞみ 166 - 1354 のぞみ 337 - 1420 のぞみ 386 - 1623 のぞみ 179 - 1613 This service only runs on very specific days... I've caught it both inbound and outbound at around the same time? Online timetables don't quite correlate to these sightings, so it's honestly just a fluke on my behalf! |
|
| Thunderbird dead-head to Osaka 0649, 0705, 1130 The EMU consists run along the Tokaido line and use the triangle just south of Amagasaki to get into Osaka station instead of crowding the line in via Umeda. |
|
| ...more to come... |
Virtual Train Trip – Osaka Station to Shin-Osaka Station
For those who don't know, suburban Japanese passenger trains, more often than not, have front windows of which passengers can actually see out of. This is very unheard of in Australia, as the driver's cabin is usually separated from the dangerous passengers by opaque walls.
Therefore in Japan, if you get into the front car of a passenger consist, not only can you see the driver and watch his every move.. you can see out the front of the train and watch as you drive along the tracks!
It's totally mesmerising. Of course, you can then also watch all the gauges and other instrumentation that the driver must control to keep the whole system functioning.
I hereby present a video I took by suction-cupping a GoPro to the front window inside a 223-Series EMU from Osaka to Shin-Osaka.
What you're seeing here is the view on the 'conductors' side of the cabin. When the train is running in the opposite direction, this is the area where the conductor usually works from as the doors switches and guard light controls are all on the wall. It's also a good shelf to store your work bag.
The trip starts with the curve out of Umeda, crossing the Yodogawa before quickly arriving at Shin-Osaka Station. If you want to then see the area afterwards, check out my Shin-Osaka Webcam sightings here.
AnyDrive – Use bigger drives than your BIOS permits!
I've mentioned this use of this Dynamic Drive Overlay software before, but I just want to go over some of its intricacies. Although 90% of it is totally straight forward, there's a few gotchas that you need to be aware of:
- It only works when the MBR has been 'booted' first
This means that, if you have AnyDrive installed and you want to boot a floppy which can see the drive in full, you need to attempt to boot the HDD first, holding shift, to then boot the floppy straight after. - When installing, use the drive number, not letter
I first installed it on drive C instead of drive 0, this caused all sorts of strange issues.
Installation
The best way to do this is to format your 3 DOS 6.22 installation disks and then copy the ANYDRIVE.EXE file over onto the first disk. Boot your machine into DOS and then hit F3 twice to exit out to the command prompt.
From here, run the ANYDRIVE command to get an idea as to your current scenario. You can use ANYDRIVE S to check an installation, if any exists. Note that if you booted straight off your floppy then ANYDRIVE will tell you that it's not correctly loaded. This is perfectly acceptable if you have booted from a floppy and not let the HDD initialise first.
To get an old 840mb HDD running on my 386, I did the following:
- Build 3 DOS 6.22 floppies
- Copy ANYDRIVE.EXE onto the first disk
- Install the HDD into the computer and then boot the first DOS disk
- Hit F3 twice to get out of DOS Setup
- Run ANYDRIVE [DRIVE_NO] [CYLS] [HEADS] [SECT]
(ANYDRIVE 0 1647 16 63 for my Quantum Trailblazer 840AT as C:) - Remove DOS Disk 1 and Reboot
- Hold down LEFT SHIFT to tell ANYDRIVE that you want to boot from a floppy
- Wait for ANYDRIVE floppy prompt and then insert DOS Disk 1 once again
- Install DOS as per usual (it should format to the new size of your disk)
Usage and Boot-time quirks
Once it's installed, and your OS is installed, it's all happy days. Everything is fine until you try to boot from a floppy. As per every old BIOS, boot will be handed to the floppy drive prior to the HDD and therefore the HDD won't be initialised until later. If this happens, then ANYDRIVE wont be initialised correctly and your actual BIOS settings will be used.
This is a problem. As any attempt to then access C:, which has been partitioned and formatted based on ANYDRIVE settings, could cause all sorts of damage as the geometry will be wrong!
To prevent this, make sure your boot disks are ejected and hold shift when your machine starts... you'll instead see the ANYDRIVE boot line and then a prompt to boot from A:. Booting your boot floppy at this point will ensure that any software afterwards sees your ANYDRIVE settings rather than BIOS settings.
I hope this helps anyone trying to get more storage on their older dinosaurs!
Shin-Osaka Webcam – Twilight Express Mizukaze!
First it was Doctor Yellow, but today proved a more rare sight....
You'd better believe it, that's the Twilight Express Mizukaze. The link to the camera is here. It has been raining the last two days and the sound of the rain has actually been fascinating!
Update, here it is again on the 11th October 2017...
And again this morning!
Back into Osaka...
I've made some most posts on this webcam! See here for standard services, here's Doctor Yellow and here's the Salon Car Naniwa. I've also posted a live timetable of the normal traffic in and out of the station.
OSX vs External MIDI Synthesizers
I've had an Edirol UM-1 USB MIDI Interface for ages and assumed it would 'just work' with the new Apple Power Mac G4 running OSX Tiger 10.4.11 that I recently acquired. The short answer is, it worked in the end, but the path to get it sorted wasn't overly intuitive.
Installing the correct drivers
Browse to the Roland Support Site and download the UM-1 Driver Version 2.1.0 for Mac OS X. This will give you the usual DMG on your desktop.
Run the UM1USBDriver.pkg file and follow the prompts. You may need to restart!
Configuring MIDI on OSX
Once you're back at your desktop, browse to Applications and look for Audio MIDI Setup.
You should have a device called UM-1 listed here. What you now need to do is add a new device for your external synthesizer. Hit Add Device from the top toolbar.
Give it the appropriate name and adjust the ports as required. Click the top-left icon and change it to something more appropriate.
From here, you need to join the output of the UM-1 to the input of your new synthesizer. Look at the first image in this section above.
Playing MIDI Files
QuickTime Player JUST WON'T WORK. It only seems to ever want to use the QuickTime Music Synthesizer. Forget about it and download Sweet MIDI Player. Once it's open, click the MIDI menu and then choose MIDI Setup.
Choose Core MIDI and then select your device. Now play your songs!
Of course... you'll only get the first 3/4 of the song... will need to work out how to buy a license.
Good luck!
Power Macintosh Graphite G4 M5183 733mhz
You should've seen this poor thing on the shelf at the 'tip shop'. It was covered in mud, scuff marks, scratches and looked to have the absolute poop beaten out of it. I asked the price anyway, as I've always wanted to tinker with one of these things and this was in a perfectly restorative condition. It turns out that the going rate was AUD$5.00, so I purchased it and an original Macintosh A/B serial switch as well. (That'll work well for the MIDI devices I want to hook up.)
Getting it home...
Fortunately I had appropriate wrapping in the boot and insulated my newly acquired hazardous goods from anything on which it would leave a mark. It then went straight outside onto the balcony where I regretted yet another one of my impulse-purchases.
Look at that grime... There was actually dirt falling out of it whenever I moved it and the wrapping I had it in had a collection of ... 'waste' that fallen out on the way home. Sliding around in the boot probably didn't help either.
Identifying it...
This turned out to be easier than expected... It's an M5183 G4 733mhz Power Macintosh 'Graphite'... but the guts aren't 100%. It was meant to come with an NVIDIA GeForce 2, HDD, etc... but instead has an ATI RAGE 128?
Oh well... as long as it works!
Tearing it apart
Thanks to Apple's lust for ease-of-tear-down, this machine unscrewed and disassembled itself. The case is actually really nice; especially how it pops open with two latches and unfurls so that cables are secured and not in the way.
Cables on hinges are expected to fail over time... but it looks like this one met a harsher fate...
Meanwhile... yes... check out that grime! The entire case had a layer of crud inside, and this ain't dust. This is land-fill-biological-waste which was treated with every caution required. Fortunately it was all dry, so hopefully there weren't too many living organisms. Actually, I half-expected something to crawl out of the power supply but, apart from fertiliser and dirt/dust, it was relatively unscathed!
The case got the full treatment. It needed it. Unfortunately, working with base metal chassis' always means human casualties. Fortunately I have a plentiful supply of disinfectant and bandaids.
Building it back up again...
This was the fun part... there's always screws left over! For the most part everything just slotted back together. The only real issue was the IDE cable.
As that the original cable was damaged, I tried to find one from my stash that would fit, but none were long enough. The cable would end up supporting the mainboard panel when trying to open the case.
Either way, it worked when closed... It was time to add voltage!
Flicking the switch
I really didn't know what to expect here... just because things are clean, doesn't mean they won't fry your local electrical circuits or trip breakers. I used a protected powerboard to provide an extra level of safety and plugged in the power cable. It actually gave a small crackle as it started to pull power; probably the first time in years that it had. These power supplies are always using some amount of current, as they're always in some form of standby, so it wasn't unexpected that I'd already have current draw on simply plugging in the power.
Fortunately, everything just worked... it even wanted to boot a Mac OS9 Lives ISO!
Roll-your-own IDE cable
Of course, Apple love their proprietary bits and pieces. In this case (hah, pun), the IDE cable is extra-long and runs around the entire length of the case before getting to the ZIP and CD drives. This is an 80-pin UDMA cable and, in my case, had been damaged where it flexes to the mainboard. I attempted to crimp on my own IDC header, but a standard 40-pin doesn't do the job.
Seems to be an extra crimp row on the 80-pin header... something about every-second-pin being ground? Regardless, I just made my own 40-pin cable. Meh, the CD and ZIP wont perform at their capacity, but they'll work!
All the components were easily acquired from Jaycar... crimping them needed a hammer and a solid bench (sorry kitchen.)
I tested it. Yes. On bare carpet. Even with an after-market drive! The original 'super-drive' was having difficulty... might need to clean it out also.
Routing it back through the case was easy enough. I wasn't game to 'fold' the cable into the angles as much as they did, so I just pressed them down as much as was required.
Nice. And then it just worked perfectly! I still need a ZipDisk to check that drive.
OS Versions
This machine can support anything up to Mac OS X 10.4.11. You can find the 10.4.6 ISO online pretty easily (I really miss WinWorldPC)... then you just need the 10.4.11 PPC Combo Update to bring it up to the last possible version.
I actually initially installed Mac OS9 Lives, with OSX 10.4.6 installed after it onto a secondary partition. OSX actually wouldn't boot when this was the case! It just showed that stupid 'prohibitory' 'cancel' symbol above. It seems that Mac OS9 formats the disks (or installs drivers?) in some way that stops OSX from finding the "root device". Either way, installing OSX first, and ticking the 'Install support for Mac OS 9 Disk Drivers' when partitioning!, worked perfectly. I now have a nice dual-boot scenario. I think I can even boot the Mac OS 9 partition inside 'Classic', but I haven't tried this yet.
Cleaning the case
As can be seen from the first pictures, the case was in a dire need of a scrub. Turns out it's not just superficial though! The cuts are deep and full of gunk. There was also a good crap-tonne of dirt on the inside-side.
Once scrubbed clean, it was time to spit-and-polish. I tried both the 'dremel' and wet-dry sandpaper, but ran out before I could really get the result I wanted... back to the hardware store soon to sand down more of the scratches. I'll then need some kind of real buffing solution to get the shine back. Unless matte Macs are a thing now?
RAM
This machine has three RAM slots and OS 9 showed up 1.25gb of RAM. Interesting that someone would choose to mix RAM size values. A quick inspection of the actual DIMMs showed that one was indeed 256mb instead of 512mb. I was initially worried that the slot with a missing latch was the issue... thankfully not.
My box'o'RAM helped out here and gave me a 512mb from the IBM NetVista that, with Windows 98SE installed, couldn't support more than 512mb RAM anyway.
Equivalent Vintage iPod
Just for fun, I plugged in my intel-formatted iPod. iTunes appeared and it 'just worked perfectly'(tm).
Nice to have suitably vintage tunes also!
What's next?
Might need to update the graphics card? Or maybe swap in a newer ATX power supply as this one makes a high-pitched whine and is probably not environmentally friendly. WiFi would be nice too, but it seems I really just need an internal PCMCIA Airport card. And then MIDI and games... I have a Roland UM-1, but it's not playing ball yet... more learning to do!
Fukushima Station, Osaka, Japan – July 2017
Welcome back to Osaka. This time it was an airbnb apartment (red marker) right in town near Fukushima Station. This area is of note as it's where the limited express/freight line from Shin Osaka connects to the loop line to continue west/south (green marker). There's also the continuation of the Tokaido Main Line west of Osaka through to Amagasaki (blue marker).
This location would've also been in good proximity to the Umeda freight yards, if only they still existed! Instead the freight that comes through proceeds down to Ajikawaguchi, just before Universal Studios, Japan.
Note that standard east-west freight between Suita and Kobe uses the shortcut from Shin Osaka to the triangle just south of Kashima Station. Not the line shown on the map above; their line follows under the Shinkansen tracks via the passenger staging yards just adjacent to Shin Osaka Station.
The arrows in the freight schedules (further below) indicate the direction of travel. This is directly related to the map above: 
being Westbound and 
being Eastbound.
Tokaido Main Line
This is the continuation of the line that originates in Tokyo. The final station is Kobe, just west of Osaka, where it becomes the Sanyo Main Line.
The apartment mentioned above has a view of this line from the balcony...
With the best view being from the fire-escape's top platform...
From here, you'll be able to see all of the standard Tokaido-Sanyo Line EMUs...
Plus a view extra express trains. For example, here's the Super Hakuto...
And the Hamakaze...
And even a dead-heading Thunderbird!
You can even see out to Osaka station, amongst the other delights of the neighbourhood.
There's more to see down on the ground-level... but before that, here's the timetable of trains you can expect to see. Note that the dead-headings aren't listed... I have no idea how to find those! (You could probably guess that if a Thunderbird arrived at Osaka and had no return service then it might come past 10-20 minutes after it arrived?)
Tokaido Line Timetable
The table below describes all the services that will traverse point A on the map above. Note that the time here indicates the action as Osaka Station. Therefore, if it's heading to Osaka (Arriving), then it's going to be ~1 minute prior to the time listed. Likewise, if departing, it'll be ~1 after the time. Regardless, I'd be in position ~5 pre/post any scheduled time.
| Direction | Arrive/Depart Osaka | Service |
|---|---|---|
|
0034 | Sunrise Seto/Izumo |
|
0737 | Super Hakuto #1 |
|
0812 | Kounotori #1 |
|
0910 | Kounotori #3 |
|
0919 | Super Hakuto #2 |
|
0924 | Super Hakuto #3 |
|
0938 | Hamakaze #1 |
|
1001 | Hamakaze #2 |
|
1012 | Kounotori #5 |
|
1119 | Super Hakuto #4 |
|
1124 | Super Hakuto #5 |
|
1211 | Kounotori #9 |
|
1222 | Hamakaze #3 |
|
1223 | Kounotori #12 |
|
1320 | Super Hakuto #6 |
|
1324 | Super Hakuto #7 |
|
1411 | Kounotori #13 |
|
1423 | Kounotori #14 |
|
1511 | Kounotori #15 |
|
1519 | Super Hakuto #8 |
|
1524 | Super Hakuto #9 |
|
1622 | Kounotori #16 |
|
1705 | Hamakaze #4 |
|
1718 | Super Hakuto #10 |
|
1720 | Kounotori #18 |
|
1726 | Super Hakuto #11 |
|
1804 | Hamakaze #5 |
|
1820 | Kounotori #20 |
|
1931 | Super Hakuto #12 |
|
1949 | Kounotori #24 |
|
2005 | Hamakaze #6 |
|
2006 | Super Hakuto #13 |
|
2101 | Kounotori #26 |
|
2104 | Super Hakuto #14 |
Ground Level - Fukushima Station and the Express Line
A short walk south will get you to point B on the map right up top. This is the ground-level-crossing of the 'express line' that bypasses Osaka station from Shin-Osaka. Here'll you'll get all the south-bound express trains and a bit of freight!
First up, that perpetual impossibility! The M250 Super Rail Cargo!
The Haruka will take you to Kansai International Airport...
And the Kuroshio (ex Ocean Arrow series as well!) will take you to Shingu/Wakayama...
You'll also see the new 'Osaka Power Loop' EMUs running up above...
Osaka Loop Line / Wakayama Line Timetable
All passenger trains listed below depart/arrive at Shin Osaka. Therefore, the time needs to be adjusted by +/- ~4mins depending on direction of travel. Note that these trains approach the Fukushima area via the west side of the old Umeda freight yards! They're still at ground level when they cross the point marked B on the map above! They climb up to the Loop Line level by Noda Station.
I've mapped out the freight train timetable before, but I've also incorporated it into the table below. I've also snapped the Super Rail Cargo once before, but it was much easier this time as I just had to walk over.
Note that the freight times are squiggled. I've estimated when they should pass the area (not the time at Shin Osaka). I've only got the times at Suita and Ajikawaguchi. Check the link above for the more accurate times, or just arrive at the area 10 mins earlier than those times posted below.
| Direction | Arrive/Depart Osaka | Service |
|---|---|---|
|
~0505 | JRF #59 |
|
~0512 | JRF #51 (Super Rail Cargo M250) |
|
0617 | Haruka #1 |
|
0648 | Haruka #3 |
|
0716 | Haruka #5 |
|
0720 | Kuroshio #2 |
|
0738 | Haruka #2 |
|
0733 | Kuroshio #1 |
|
0747 | Haruka #7 |
|
0751 | Kuroshio #4 |
|
0817 | Haruka #9 |
|
0837 | Haruka #4 |
|
0846 | Haruka #11 |
|
~0850 | JRF #91 |
|
0903 | Kuroshio #3 |
|
0907 | Haruka #6 |
|
0916 | Haruka #13 |
|
0922 | Kuroshio #6 |
|
0932 | Kuroshio #5 |
|
0937 | Haruka #8 (And then every 30 mins from here until 2100) |
|
0950 | Kuroshio #8 (And then every hour from here until 2050) |
|
1000 | Haruka #15 (And then every 30 mins from here until 2100) |
|
1015 | Kuroshio #7 (And then every hour until 2115) |
|
~1048 | JRF #1180 (Rail-Set Train) |
|
~1140 | JRF #93 |
|
~1620 | JRF #1883 (Rail-Set Train) |
|
~1715 | JRF #90 |
|
~1825 | JRF #5088 |
|
~2305 | JRF #58 |
|
~2315 | JRF #50 (Super Rail Cargo M250) |
Shin-Osaka Webcam – Doctor Yellow!
Here's a webcam north of Shin-Osaka Station with a beautiful view of the tracks between Higashi-Yodogawa Station and Shin-Osaka itself. You also get to see the Shinkansen in the background.
I just happened to be randomly viewing this when I stumbled upon Doctor Yellow!
This would have to be the first time I've ever seen this train moving... Sure, I'm a few thousand kilometres away... but... I'm declaring this a success!
Turns out that this arrival is spot on to the timetable from 2014! I wonder if it'll depart at 1623? I'll update if so.
Update: I previously completely forgot to check at 1623... but I've just caught a return service at 14:14:12 on 11th October 2017:
Here it is again on the 20th of October 2017:
And after quite a hiatus, it's been seen again!
And it didn't continue west... instead turning around and departing east again at 14:28...
Very cool to watch!
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