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All the necessary dependencies are either included in this package or are avaible on the DLS. Soundscript by Rizky_Adiputra.

(Consists are included! Don’t bother with placing individual cars!)

 

By the very early 1990s, with works on Keisei’s new Narita Airport station, built in the unused box reserved for the failed Narita Shinkansen project, as the perspective replacement for the then-Narita Airport station (today’s Higashi-Narita), the company was also eyeing a rolling stock replacement on it’s dedicated airport express “Skyliner” services.

These services had been operated since their start in 1978 by the ad-hoc intended AE (“Airport Express”) Series, built by Tokyu Car Corporation and Nippon Sharyo between 1972 and 1978 as seven 6-car sets.

Depsite being the nominal flaghsip of Keisei Railway, already ten years after their introduction, the AE Series trains were already past their prime – their design was now already obsolete, and their relative lack of amenities (only a payphone had been installed on evry set in 1986) made for a stark contrast for the passengers coming form international flights – now accustomed to all sorts of fetaures and amenities on board planes.

​Furthemore, they also had aged prematurely, with bodyshell wear being a major concern.

As such, Keisei opted to replace the whole AE Series fleet with a new airport express-dedicated series, wich would eventually become the AE100 Series, introduced in June 1990.

One month later, in July 1990, the AE Series fleet was rearranged as five 8-car sets, in order to maximise their capacity ahead of the opening of the new Narita Airport station (in turn two brand-new AE100 Series sets compensated for the reduction in size of the fleet).

The new Narita Airport station opened on the 19th of March 1991, and with it, the replacement of the AE Series kept going, until the whole fleet was replaced by the AE100 Series by summer 1993.

Keisei at that time also had another problem, this time with it’s own commuter trains – with the opening of Hokuso Railway trough-services, it’s fleet had been relatively stretched, with Keisei being unable to carry out it’s planned replacements, as it didn’t have enough replacement stock ready to cover all services.

At the same time, on post-withdrawal inspections, Keisei Railway found out that, while the wear of the bodyshells was a problem, wear on their underframe equipment was relatively minor, as despite the intense services, the AE Series had only raked up a relatively low mileage thruought it’s short 15-year career.

​Thus, as a quick and cost-effective way to prop up it’s commuter fleet, Keisei opted to create a new series of commuter trains to be built using salvaged equipment from withdrawn AE Series sets.

Essentially, this involved the construction ex-novo of commuter-style bodyshells and correlated equipment and fittings (doors, interior seating and furniture, cabs, pantographs, air-conditioners) and then retrofit the necessary cars with the ex-AE Series equipment: DC traction motors, compressors, pantograhps and especially traction controllers – a shunt-chopper controller built by Toyo Denki.

This work was entrusted to Taihei Sharyo, a small manufactuer with wich Keisei already had a long relationship, as they had been their main “reference point” for rolling stock refurbishment and modifications.

The result was classified as the “3400 Series”, a funny mix between the bodyshell and interiors of a 3700 Series (then Keisei’s lastest commuter train), but relatively simplified (the tapered lower front portion of the 3700 Series design was changed for a much more simple straight vertical front, altough keeping the “angled-outwards” style), the equipment of withdrawn AE Series stock, and the appearance of Keisei’s older generations of commuter trains such as the 3300 Series and earlier – this due to the conventional steel construction of the 3400 Series, something Taihei Sharyo had to do as the small company lacked experience in manufacturing involving stainless steel (as was done instead by more experienced manufactured for Keisei’s 3700 Series and two predecessors – the 3600 and 3500 Series, as well as many other commuter trains for Japanese railways in general).

Five available AE Series sets meant a maximium of five 3400 Series sets that could be manufactured, and this was promptly done: set AE10 donated it’s equipment to 3400 Series set 3408F, AE20 donated to set 3418F, AE50 donated to 3428F, AE60 to 3438F and AE70 donated to set 3448F (the two missing AE Series sets – AE30 and AE40 had already donated their intermediate cars to the other AE Series during their lenghtening to eight cars in summer 1990). 

All five 3400 Series sets entered revenue service between January 1993 and September 1995, sharing the same assignments as the 3700 Series – services onto the Keisei Main Line between Keisei-Ueno and Keisei-Narita, or quadripartite trough-service with Hokuso Railway, the Toei Subway Asakusa Line and Keikyu Railway to Haneda Airport or Misakiguchi Station on the Kurihama Line, Keikyu’s southernmost station.

All 3400 Series sets initially in a provisional six-car formation confined to local services on the Keisei network only, before recieving their seventh and eight car a few weeks later, enabling them to be fully used on all service levels and on trough-services.

Set 3408F was briefly loaned to Hokuso Railway between the end of May 2002 and early August of the same year to bridge the gap between the forced retirement of Hokuso’s sole 7050 Series set, wich had reached it’s “overhaul deadline” (and thus was no longer allowed to operate without undergoing a costly overhaul, a financially-nonsensical prospect) and the arrival of a proper replacement, wich came in the form of Keisei’s 3700 Series set 3808F, loaned to Hokuso and reclassified as 7300 Series set 7808F.

Furthemore, thruought the early 2000s, a number of small modifications and and a range of minor retrofittings was carried out on the 3400 Series fleet: new service number indicators between July and Spetember 2002, new upholstery between August 2003 and October 2005, new flourescent interior lights between April and October 2004, new passenger information screens above the doors starting from 2005 and new pantograhps, replacing the square-scissor type ones inherited from the AE Series with standard modern single-arm ones between 2003 and 2005.

Since then, the service life of the 3400 Series remained relatively uneventful up until recent years – with the introduction of the new 3100 Series in 2019 on Narita Sky Acces Line services (running from Narita Airport via the Hokuso Line onto the Toei Asakusa Line and beyond on the Keikyu network), the 3050 Series sets that had been in use until then began to be cascaded to “standard” services on the rest of the network.

At the same time, with the 3400 Series’ 40-year-old equipment now starting to actually show it’s age, Keisei took the easy option of retiring the older trains in favour of cascading more 3050 Series sets to mainline services.

Set 3408F was the first 3400 Series set to be retired, on the 11th of August 2020, being followed by set 3428F on the 30th of September 2021 and 3418F on the 22nd of March 2023. As of the time of writing, only two sets are still officially “on the book” – 3438F and 3448F, but only one of the two is in operational status, and it’s increasingly a rare sight, having been relegated to spare duties since August 2023.

In other words, the full retirement of the 3400 Series is imminent, especially as Keisei’s new commuter train design, the 3200 Series, is about to enter service.

Prospects are relatively bleak for the 3400 Series, as second-hand purchase by a regional or rural railway company seems unlikely – as per consolidated practices, it is very likely that the whole fleet will be scrapped. There might be one residual chance for the preservation of one cab car within one of Keisei’s depot, as it has been done with the only surviving “original” AE Series cab car – preserved inside Keisei’s Sogo depot alongside other rolling stock.

Trivia #1:
The 3400 Series would end up being Taihei Sharyo’s largest and most complex project – the company had never built a full train (only handling refurbishment and air-conditioning retrofitting fro Keisei) and would never – Taihei Sharyo exited the railway sector in 2001, opting instead to point to real estate instead – the company still exists today as a building management company under the interesting “Two Horses Company” name.

The site formerly occupied by Taihei Sharyo’s plant is now Keisei Railway’s Sogo Depot, in the southern outskirts of Narita, on the last leg of the Keisei Main Line.

Trivia #2:

Ironically, Hokuso Line services operated by 3400 Series sets invariably had to terminate at Imba-Nihon-Idai Station, as they were not cleared for operations onto the Narita Sky Access Line, thus preventing them from “returning” to Narita Airport in normal service (A 3400 Series set would be seen at Narita Airport exactly once – done under a special waiver and with a reserved group tour train).