From left to right, 3000 Series in Keisei’s standard livery, 3050 Series in the 2010 to 2019 “sky blue” livery, 3050 Series in the post-2019 orange livery and 3050 Series in the “standard” Keisei livery for surplus trains cascaded to non airport-dedicated services.

 

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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!)

 

The introduction of a new series of rolling stock on Keisei network in the early ‘2000s was dictated by a series of factors, primarily the necessity of replacing the bulk of the obsolete resistor-control fleet, much of wich dated back to the 1960s and wasn’t compliant with barrier-free access regulations, namely the 3200 and 3300 Series, as well as a portion of the 1970s-era 3500 Series fleet not slated for refurbishment.

At the time, Keisei’s newest train type was the 3700 Series, wich had been introduced in 1991 and had been manufactured until 2001 with some relatively minor design changes. The 3700 Series were (and still are) pretty good trains, but their design, closer to 1980s practices, was already slightly obsolete, with Keisei rightly opting for an entirely new design based on the lastest technologies available. This was also dictated by the fact that many other companies within the broader Keisei group, especially Shin-Keisei Railway and Hokuso Railway were also looking to replace their own oldest rolling stock types, and as such, the new trains would effectively become a “standard” type among the Keisei-tied companies.

Designed by Nippon Sharyo using it’s own stainless steel “Block Construction System” (later “N-QUALIS”), their manufacture was undertaken jointly by Nippon Sharyo itself along with Tokyu Car Corporation; they are essentially unremarkable in terms of design as far as fetaures go, with the classic stainless steel bodyshell, three doors per side, centralized air conditioning system (Keisei’s first) and IGBT-VVVF inverter (manufactured by Toyo Denki). As with all of Keisei’s rolling stock since the late 1960s, the new trains were also designed to be compatible with trough-services, both on the Toei Asakusa Asakusa Line as well as onwards to the Keikyu network.

The only slightly notable fetaures are their “black front” color scheme with relatively thin blue and red lines (Keisei’s colours) and the two top-mounted headlights (derived from the lastest batches of 3700 Series trains delivered a few years earlier in 2001). In terms of passenger comfort, interior fittings, from seats to next-stop displays, are also pretty standard and unremarkable, and as with many other serieses, tracing their origins back to JR East’s groundbreaking 209 Series.

Classified as the “3000 Series” and in all, a completely mundane and unremarkable train, the first set was delivered in December 2002 and entered service on the 1st of February 2003, this being 8-car set 3001F (built by Nippon Sharyo) and followed four days later by the entry into service of the first 6-car set, 3002F (also built by Nippon Sharyo).

These would be followed later that year by four more 6-car sets, 3006F to 3009F. Even-numbered sets (3006F and 3008F) built by Nippon Sharyo were the first to be delivered, between October and November 2003, with the other two odd-numbered (3007F and 3009F) sets built by Tokyu Car Co. being delivered in January of 2004.

With the entry into service of this “second” batch (the first batch being the two sets, 3001F and 3002F, delivered in February 2003), Keisei was able to fully retire it’s 3200 Series, one set of wich was loaned to Hokuso Railway and reclassified as “7250 Series” to replace it’s older 7050 Series set (another hand-me-down from Keisei, a former 3150 Series set).

Four more 6-car sets followed between late 2004 and early 2005 following the same opposite pattern from the second batch: odd-numbered Tokyu Car-built sets (3011F and 3013F) were delivered in November 2004 and even-numbered Nippon Sharyo-built sets (3010F and 3012F) were delivered in February 2005.

Four more 6-car sets again followed suit, with odd-numbered Tokyu Car-built sets (3015F and 3017F) delivered in January 2006 and even-numbered Nippon Sharyo-built sets (3014F and 3016F) delivered in March.

With the delivery of this 4th batch, the 3000 Series’ fleet surpassed the “100 cars” mark, becoming Keisei’s second-largest fleet behind the 3700 Series. Also, contextual to the delivery of this batch, Keisei was able to reitre the 3300 Series from mainline services, cascading it to the Kanamachi and Chihara Lines as well as leasing two 4-car sets (forming a single 8-car set) to Hokuso Railway as the “7260 Series”, replacing the afromentioned 7250 Series set introduced three years prior.

After the lastest batch, deliveries of 3000 Series sets destined for Keisei Railway were “paused” for a few years (other Keisei-group companies kept recieving their own versions however). 

Deliveries would resume for Keisei in late 2009 with a new seventh batch of six eight-car sets, the first ones since the introduction of the type in 2003. These however were not intended for “general” services like the rest of the 3000 Series fleet, but were envisioned from the start to operate rapid services to and from Narita Airport via the newly-opened Narita Airport Line, an extension of the Hokuso Line that had been variously envisioned since the 1970s but was only opened for revenue services in 2010.

The Narita Airport Line (wich is more commonly known as the “Narita Sky Access route”, a moniker that refers to the amalgamae of the Narita Airport Line, Hokuso Line and Keisei Main Line to Keisei-Ueno station), is of course primarily known for it’s limited express “Skyliner” services handled by the dedicated AE Series, running at a maximium speed of 160Km/h, with intermediate stops only at Shin-Kamagaya, Aoto and Nippori. 

However, the line is also served by “Access Express” rapid services with no fare surcharge, with additional intermediate stops at Narita Yukawa, Imba-Nihon-Idai, Chiba New Town Chuo, Higashi-Matsudo and Keisei-Takasago. The 7th batch of the 3000 Series was specifically designed and ordered to run these very “Access Express” services, and as such fetaured a few slight differences compared to the “standard” 3000 Series, namely an increased top speed (120Km/h over 110Km/h of the standard 6-car 3000 Series sets – the only 8-car set, 3001F was also capable of a 120Km/h top speed from the start) and some modified equipment. Interestingly, for a train dedicated to airport services, the interior arrangment remained the same of the “standard” 3000 Series.

However, the most notable difference is in the color scheme, as the “Access Express”-dedicated sets recieved their own unique color scheme: a wide light blue band (fading lightly from bottom to top) representing the sky, interjected by blue and red (Keisei’s colours) plane decorations.

Classified as the “3050 Series”, due to their specialized nature, the six 8-car sets (3051F to 3056F), all built entirely by Nippon Sharyo, were delivered between January and June 2010, ready for the start of revenue services on the Narita Sky Access route on the 17th of July 2010.

Two more “gap” years elapsed until 2012, when as part Keisei’s fiscal year 2012 capital investment plan, two “standard” 3000 Series 8-car sets were procured. 

Based on the improvements already implemented on the 3050 Series, the two sets (3026F and 3027F) were built by the newly rebranded J-TREC (Tokyu Car Corporation after it’s acquisition by JR East in 2011) at it’s Yokohama plant, and were delivered in Febrary and March 2013 respectively. An additional 8-car set, 3028F, was delivered as the “9th batch” in February 2014, having been built by Nippon Sharyo.

Two more 8-car sets were delivered in 2010 as the 10th batch, part of Keisei’s fiscal 2014 capital investment plan. 3029F and 3030F were built by J-TREC and delivered in March and February 2015 respectively.

With the delivery of this 10th batch, Keisei now had enough “new” rolling stock to cascade the older refurbished 3500 Series and 3600 Series trains to the “lesser” lines, finally replacing the 1960s-vintage 3300 Series.

Likewise, an 8-car 3700 Series set was removed from Keisei’s inventory and loaned to Hokuso Railway, where it replaced the latter’s only 7260 Series set (wich consited of two former Keisei 3300 Series 4-car sets coupled togheter).

Even with the full replacement of all of the pre-stainless steel rolling stock, Keisei kept ordering new 3000 Series sets, this time to increase capacity and to further slim the ageing 3500 Series’ fleet, wich depsite being stainless steel trains and refurbished relatively recently, dated back to the early 1970s and as such were reaching 40 years of age.

Procurement of an 11th batch of 3000 Series sets was made again via capital expenditure, this time for the 2015 fiscal year. Two more sets again, 3031F and 3032F, built by J-TREC (and both delivered in February 2016), but this time formed as six-car sets, being the first such trains ordered by Keisei in nearly eight years.

A 12th batch of three sets followed one year later, as part of fiscal 2016 capital expenditure; this batch consiting of two eight-car sets (3033F and 3035F, both built by J-TREC and delivered in February and March 2017) as well as one six-car set (3034F built by Nippon Sharyo and delivered in February 2017).

Of these three, specifically one 8-car set was used as the replacement for a 3700 Series set loaned to Chiba New Town Railway (to replace the last remaining 9000 Series set dating back to 1984), the other 8-car set was intended to replace a withdrawn 3600 Series 6-car set, and the lone 6-car set was intended to replace a withdrawn 3500 Series 6-car set.

Three more eight-car sets followed suit in 2018 (as part of the fiscal 2017 capital expenditure plan) as the 13th batch, consisting of sets 3036F, 3037F and 3038F, all three built by J-TREC, with the first two being delivered in February and the latter third in March 2018.

Finally, the final 14th batch of the 3000 Series was ordered in 2018, consisting of two six-car sets (3039F and 3040F), both built by Nippon Sharyo in September 2018 and two eight-car sets (3041F and 3042F), both built by Nippon Sharyo and delivered in February 2019.

At this point, the 3000 Series fleet had become by far Keisei’s largest, consisting of 42 sets, of wich twenty 8-car sets (including the six 3050 Series sets) as well as twelve 6-car sets. 

However the 3000 Series design was now over 15 years old, and with the Tokyo Olympics looming, Keisei opted for a new design for further replacements, rather than continuing production of the 3000 Series.

Classified as the 3100 Series, the new trains are essentially direct successors to the 3000 Series, using the same basic bodyshell design, but with much-needed updated interiors and equipment. 

The first two sets were delivered in October 2019 and placed in service on the Narita Sky Access route in anticipation of the arrival of hordes of overseas tourists for the olympics. Notably, the new 3100 Series trains sported a livery based on the ones of the 3050 Series trains that had been running until then on the same line, but with a different scheme (a horizontal band under the window rather than a large one around them), additional decorations (depicting a view of Mount Fuji from Tokyo, Narita Shrine, Asakusa’s Kaminarimon and the Tokyo Skytree) and most notably, a vibrant orange as the main colour instead of sky blue.

​With the introduction of the new trains in revenue service, the color scheme of all 3050 Series was also uniformed to the new design.

However, as more and more 3100 Series trains entered service on the Narita Sky Access route, Keisei opted to cascade surplus 3050 Series sets to “normal” Keisei network workings, alongside with the 3000 Series.

Repainted in the same “standard” color scheme as the other 3000 Series sets, the first 3050 Series sets re-entered services as “normal” trains on the whole of the Keisei network also in 2019, as two more 3100 Series sets were delivered.

As of today, the 3000 Series is the mainstay Keisei’s whole network, being used on all lines with the sole exceptions of the Katamachi Line (wich uses 4-car sets due to limited platform lenght).

8-car trains are normally used for rapid and express Keisei Main Line services, from Keisei-Narita up to Aoto, then onto the Oshiage Line to Keisei-Oshiage, where all services continue onto the Toei Subway Asakusa Line and to Keikyu’s network, usually running either to Haneda Airport via Keikyu-Kamata and Keikyu’s Airport Line or to Keikyu-Kurihama on the Keikyu Main Line (some services used even to go all the way to Misakiguchi, but these where shortened to Keikyu-Kurihama in 2019).

8-car 3000 Series sets can also be found on the Hokuso Line running normal local-trough services with the Keisei, Toei and Keikyu networks, altough rather infrequently as Hokuso Railway has a sizeable fleet at it’s disposal.

Six-car sets are instead used thruought the whole network as local and rapid trains, mainly on the Main Line out of Keisei-Ueno and on the Keisei Chiba Line (including trough-services onto the Chihara Line for Chiba Line trains and onto the Shibayama Railway for Main Line trains).

Finally, 3050 Series sets in their two “airport” liveries were exclusively dedicated to “Narita Sky Access route” services from Narita Airport to Keisei-Ueno and even on airport-to-airport express services between Narita and Haneda, running via the Toei Asakusa Line. “Cascaded” and repainted 3050 Series sets are instead used interchangeably with the “normal” 3000 Series sets, and as such generally run the same rapid and express subway trough-services.