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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 3700 Series was introduced by Keisei Railway in the early 1990s for two main reasons – firstly, and most importantly, due to the opening of the 2nd “western” phase of the Hokuso Line, between Kita-Hatsuomi Station (the western terminus of the 1st phase, where Hokuso Line trains switched over to the Shin-Keisei Line to run provisional trough-services to Matsudo) and Keisei-Takasago Station, the connection to Keisei’s network, finally enabling trough-services between the Hokuso Line and Keisei Railway, with Hokuso Railway trains able to run further beyond on the Toei Subway Asakusa Line and onto Keikyu Railway’s network at the other end.
Thuus, both Keisei Railway and Hokuso Railway needed new rolling stock to run services over the newly completed trackage between Kita-Hatsuomi and Keisei-Takasago stations, as well to enlarge the fleet in order to handle the increased number of daily services.
Secondly, Keisei also needed new rolling stock overall, in order to replace a non-insignificant part of it’s fleet on all kinds of services, from local to expresses, trough- or non-trough with the Asakusa Line, specifically the 3000 Series, wich had been introduced in 1958 in preparation for the start of trough-services with the Asakusa Line, as well as most of it’s derivatives, such as the 3050 Series (introduced in 1959 to supplement the 3000 Series), the 3100 Series and the 3200 Series – all very similar trains (collectively nicknamed “Akaden” or “Red Trains” due to their red and cream livery, based on Toei’s 5000 Series) wich had been in service for about 30 years, and fetaured a number of obsolete and archaic fetaures (such as the single-leaf doors) and some individual sets and cars also notably lacked many modern ones (air conditioning primarily).
As such, the new trains were built to a common design shared by Keisei and Hokuso Railway. The design itself is relatively unremarkable, being a classic stainless-steel bodyshell with three double-leaf doors per side and an unassuming vertical front (altough slightly angled horizontally outwards). A bit fancier the equipment, fetauring a Toyo Denki-manufactured GTO-VVVF inverter controlling three-phase asynchronous traction motors (making it both Keisei and Hokuso’s first inverter-controlled rolling stock) and “scissor-bottom” square pantographs.
Classified as 3700 Series for Keisei (Hokuso’s owns being classified as the 7300 Series), the first three 8-car sets (3708F, 3718F and 3728F, the first two manufactured by Nippon Sharyo and the third one by Tokyu Car Co.), were completed by March 1991, in time to enter revenue services (together with Hokuso’s 7300 Series) with the start of trough-services between Hokuso and Keisei Railway on the 31st.
With the introduction of these three sets, Keisei was already able to retire the last few remaining non-air conditioned 3000 and 3050 Series car, as well the one 8-car 1000 Series set that Keisei had rented out from Keikyu Railway, also to replace non-air conditioned cars (as Keikyu’s 1000 Series were all retrofitted with air-conditioning already in the mid-1980s).
After a brief two-year hiatus (as priority was switched to the AE100 Series for airport express services, as well as the 3400 Series – new commuter trains built to the image of the 3700 Series but using equipment from newly withdrawn AE-series trains), 3700 Series deliveries resumed in 1994, with the delivery of formation 3738F (built by Tokyu Car Co.), follwed in 1995 by another set, 3748F, also built by Tokyu Car Co.
This “second” batch of two trains fetaured a few slight differences from the 1st one, with the two most notable being the removal of the rim around the service type indicator, making it flush with the rest of the bodyshell and the addition of a front skirt, a modification that was also retrofitted to the three 1st-batch trains by 1995.
A 3rd batch consisting of four trains was delivered between December 1995 and March 1996, consisting of sets 3758F, 3768F, 3778F and 3788F, with sets 3578F and 3778F built by Tokyu Car Co. and sets 3768F and 3788F being built by Nippon Sharyo. These were ordered to replace the last remaining 3100 Series sets, as well as to provide additional rolling stock for the opening of the Toyo Rapid Railway, a de-facto extension of the TRTA Tozai Line from Funabashi station to Katsutadai station on the Keisei Main Line, owned and operated by the Toyo Rapid Railway (a company with strong ties to Keisei Railway, but not part of the Keisei Group).
Two additional sets, 3798F and 3808F, were delivered as the 4th batch in May and December 1997 respectively, with the former having been built by Tokyu Car Co. and the latter by Nippon Sharyo, and in November 1998, set 3818F, built by Nippon Sharyo, was delivered as the “one-set-only” 5th batch.
By then, Keisei’s 3700 Series fleet consisted of a total of 96 cars, or twelve 8-car sets, with their main assignment being running services onto the Hokuso Line or the Keisei Mainline to Keisei-Narita and Narita Airport.
However, the Keisei Chiba Line (on wich a number of station platforms aren’t long enough to handle 8-car trains) was also in need to replace a part of it’s local service fleet, and as such, a new batch of two 3700 Series sets was delivered in 2000, formed as six-car sets.
Sets 3828F and 3838F, built by Tokyu Car and Nippon Sharyo respectively, and delivered in January and February 2000 as the “6th Batch”, did not only differ from “standard” 3700s for their shorter formation: a number of changes was made to update the nearly 10-year old 3700 Series design, the most notable of wich being the change in headlighs, wich were moved above the cab windows, with the “express” marker lights being moved down in their place. Other modifications also included the adoption of LED-type destination signs and service indicators, a reinforced cab structure as a countermesaure against crashes on Keisei’s numerous level crossings, the fitting of a new wheelslip protection system and a few other minor modifications to seating and interior equipment. With the introduction of these two sets on the Chiba Line, Keisei was able to reitre the last remaining 3150 Series sets in service.
Finally, to provide enough rolling stock for an increase of services to and from Haneda Airport (via the Toei Asakusa Line and Keikyu Railway), three more sets, based on the 6th batch, but formed as “standard” 8-car sets.
In total, three batches were delivered, each consisting of one train each: Set 3848F built by Tokyu Car and delivered in January 2001 as the 7th Batch, set 3858F built by Nippon Sharyo in August 2001 as the 8th Batch and set 3868F, built by Tokyu Car and delivered in March 2002 as the 9th and final batch.
Further orders, as a planned replacement for the 3200 Series, as well as to provide rolling stock for the upcoming opening of the Shibayama Railway (a one-station extension of the Keisei Main Line from Higashi-Narita to Shibayama-Chiyoda, on the other side of the airport’s runway) were curtailed – the former in favour of an entirely new design, the 3000 Series, as the 3700 Series’ own design was now more than 10 years old, while for the latter, the more cost-effective option of renting out an older 3600 Series set to Shibayama Railway was chosen.
Thus, in the end, the total tally of 3700 Series cars stands at 132, subdivided into seventeen sets – fifteen 8-car sets assigned to the Hokuso-Keisei-Toei-Keikyu quadripartite trough-services, running between Imba-Nihon-Idai and Haneda Airport or Keisei Main Line-only services, running between Keisei-Ueno and Keisei-Narita (or Shibayama-Chiyoda via Higashi-Narita) and two outlier 6-car sets primarily assigned to Keisei Chiba Line services between Keisei-Ueno and Keisei Chiba-Chuo, with infrequent trough-services onto the Chihara Line.
Within their long (and current) career, the 3700 Series trains have undergone just a few minor modifications, most notably with the opening of the Narita Sky Acces Line in 2010 (as the 3700 Series sets are rostered as spares if need arises), wich included further adaptations to improve running performance at 120Km/h and other tweaks to match Keikyu Railway’s specific and peculiar requirements. A slight renewal of interior fittings and equipment was also carried out between 2012 and 2014.
As of today, the 3700 Series is now nearing 35 years of age, and the fleet is gradually becoming thinner, but not due to withdrawals – in fact, thanks to the copious amounts of 3000 Series sets introduced since 2001, followed by even more trains introduced with the 3100 Series of 2019, a number of 3700 Series sets have been transferred or leased to Keisei’s subsidiaries Hokuso Railway and Chiba New Town Railway in order to replace their older rolling stock.
Hokuso Railway first recieved 3700 Series set 3708F (the very first set ever built) in January 2003 wich was renamed into the 7300 Series (as the “7800 subseries”) as set 7808F, being followed by set 7818F (Keisei’s 3748F) in 2015 to replace Hokuso Railway’s sole 7260 Series set (two 4-car 3300 Series sets on loan from Keisei Railway since 2006 coupled togheter to form an 8-car train), set 7828F (Keisei’s 3778F) in 2018 and set 7838F (Keisei’s 3768F) to replace set 7818F, wich was returned to Keisei Railway after it derailed at Aoto station on the 12th of January 2020.
Chiba New Town Railway instead recieved Keisei’s set 3738F in 2017, wich was consequently renumbered as 9808F – the sole set in the “9800 Series”, intended to replace the last remaining 9000 Series set in operation.
Besides the afromentioned on-loan set, a “proper” Keisei-owned and operated 3700 Series set was also involved in a different derailment, with car 3788 of the namesake formation 3788F jumping a switch while reversing into Keisei-Takasago depot, damaging the two trailing cars (cab car 3788 and two-pantograph car 3787), wich were replaced with two cars from another 3700 Series sets – the resulting surplus cars being scrapped soon after.
An eventual replacement is surely in the plans for the 3700 Series, but for the time being, replacing other rolling stock seem to be the priority for Keisei (namely the ageing 3400, 3500 and 3600 Serieses), meaning that 3700 Series sets will be safe for quite some years more.
