Saturday, October 24, 2020

JR West's West Express Ginga (including things to do in San'in)

West Express Ginga is a luxury sleeper train operated by JR West. It runs between Kyoto/Osaka Area and Izumoshi in the San'in area. The rolling stock used in this sleeper service is the 117 series. The 117 series train was formerly used as shinkaisoku (新快速, special rapid service) commuter trains in the Kyoto/Osaka/Kobe area by the Japanese National Railways (kokutetsu, 国鉄, 國鐵). Btw, JNR was privitised and split into 6 passenger companies according to region and one freight company. However, some of those old trains was refurbished for use for sleeper services. Originally, this sleeper service was slated to start running by May 2020, but was postponed to September 11 the same year due to coronavirus infections.

Initial launch of the first 5 next generation Acela trains along the Northeast Corridor was finally happened after 9 long years with multiple delays.

Since August 28 this year, Amtrak, the national rail operator of the USA, debuted the NextGen Acela train along the Northeast Corridor at 5:...