“Revival livery” on the left, “standard livery” on the right
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All the necessary dependencies are either included in this package or are avaible on the DLS. Scripts belong to their respective owners.
(Consists are included! Don’t bother with placing individual cars!)
Like many other similar rural railways that evolved from interurban built at the turn of the century, the Kamikochi Line of the Matsumoto Electric Railway was converted from 600v to the “standard” 1500v DC voltage in the mid-1980s.
To replace the ageing and now-incompatible 600v stock, Matsumoto Electric Railway opted for the purchase of surplus Tokyu 5000 Series trains (a purchase made by several other railways at the time, such as Gakunan Densha and the nearby Nagano Electric Railway), wich were cheap and available in large numbers.
However, the 5000 Series had a rather obsolete design, dating from the early 1950s, and had several archaic fetaures such as the nose-suspended motors, single-leaf mechanical doors. Thus, by the late 1990s, the Matsumoto Electric Railway set forth to acquire a fleet of new trains that could act as a more “long-term” option than the crumbling 5000s.
The choice fell on the Keio 3000 Series, a considerable number of wich were being retired from the Inokashira Line, and many had already found a successful second-life on several rural railways, such as the Jomo Electric Railway and the Hokuriku Railway.
Matsumoto Electric Railway purchased eight cab cars from Keio Railway, with the intent of forming four 2-car sets, more than enough to operate all services on the relatively short Kamikochi Line.
The eight purchased cars were picked from the sets that had just been made surplus by the introduction of the 1000 Series, and were handed over to Keio Heavy Equipment (a subsidiary of Keio Railway that handles rolling stock modifications and resales of surplus equipment) for a general refurbishment – the modifications included a new front with wrap-around windows, identical to the one also being applied to the newest 3000 Series sets that were to remain in service on the Inokashira Line, the removal of the front roller blind destination indicator, a general repairation of the bodyshell, new air-conditioning unit, new driving desks with one-handle master controllers (taken from surplus Keio 6000 Series sets) and the necessary equipment for one-man operations – side-view mirrors, in-cab fareboxes and so on.
After these modifications were made, each individual car was shipped by truck to Matsumoto Electric Railway’s workshops, where the cars were given the finishing touches and a new coat of paint – a very modern and striking all-over white livery with five “rainbow-like” colour bands and “Highland Rail – Kamikochi Line” branding inscriptions on the sides and the front.
The first two completed sets entered service on the Kamikochi Line in October 1999, maintaining their “3000 Series” classification. The remaining two sets followed suit in July 2000 – at this point, Matsumoto Electric Railway had enough sets to cover all the line’s services, and thus the last remaining ex-Tokyu 5000 Series sets were retired later that month.
Since then, the 3000 Series has lived a rather uneventful life, shuttling back and forth between Matsumoto and Shinshimashima, with the only notable event being the 2017 repainting of set No.2 (3003-3004) in a vermillion orange and grey “revival” livery inspired by the one fitted to MoHa 10 Series trains of the pre-1980s “600v era”.
However by the late 2010s the 3000 Series sets were considerably ageing – depsite having been refurbished (wich, nonetheless was 20 years earlier) much of their equipment still dated back to the late-1960s, when these trains were first manufactured for Keio Railway, thus a replacement was more or less in order.
The replacement came quite recently in the form of the 20100 Series – ex-Tobu Railway 20000 Series intermediate cars converted and modified by Keio Heavy Equipment and introduced in 2021 (making them Tobu’s first sale of second-hand rolling stock in about 25 years – the last time being the sale of 3000 and 3050 Series trains to the Jomo Electric Railway in 1995). The first 20100 Series set entered service on the 25th of March 2022, replacing 3000 Series set No.1 (3001-3002), wich as subsequently written-off and scrapped.
Matsumoto Electric Railway, since merged and renamed to the current “Alpico Kotsu” name in 2011, plans to introduce one 20100 Set per year – the second one is nearing completion and will be introduced soon. Thus it’s just a matter of time before the eventual full replacement of the 3000 Series, wich will then be retired from the Kamikochi Line after about 20 years of service.
