50レ
I often wonder when I travel overseas if I'm doing the whole touristy thing right. I had an appiffany about half way through the trip when I was staying in South Korea & Mum asked me "if you weren't seeing trains, what would you be doing?" to which I had no idea.
You see other people going overseas & visiting all the touristy spots, eating local food & checking out temples, theme parks or going shopping & they all seem very content with what they've done with their trip. You certainly feel like a goose when people ask what you did with your holidays & all you can tell them is "Aside from drinking hideous amount of alcohol and smoking cheap ciggarettes, I sat around railway lines for the whole day hoping trains would turn up and half the time they wouldnt and the other half it wouldn't be in the circumstances you wanted it to turn up in."
The idea of us staying in Osaka was to have a break from seeing trains, go check out stuff around the centre of town, have a delicious curry at Coco's, drink some more and hit up a pachinko parlour or a nightclub. In the end we decided we would do our own things and reconviene later in the night. Thomas had wondered off to a Whiskey tasting factory, Cade & myself ended up going for a wander only to find everywhere was far too crowded to go into. A sign of the overtourism that Japan has been facing (a problem which we were definently a part of).
Through a stroke of luck we discovered we were staying a 20 minute walk away from this level crossing where the MC250 series run through & with some impropdu research discovered the train was timetabled out of Osaka at 23:00. We set out for the crossing with a quick stop at Family Mart to get some Famichicki's & a few cans of Strong Zero. We then parked ourselves up at this crossing and took full advantage of Japan's public drinking laws (or lack there of).
I guess the takeaway from all of this is that this ended being one of my favourite nights. It was simple, just sitting with your mates chatting shit & watching trains go by whilst sinking cans. As fun as plan A might have been it would not have been anywhere near as enjoyable due to how many people there were out and about. I know its a stupid thing to complain about when youre in Japan's second biggest city.
But anyway, enough about my undiagnosed autism and more about the train.
Seen in the heart of Osaka, MC250-1 is seen passing Fukushima station (which is in the top left corner of the frame) working JR / Sagawa Express freight train #50 from Ajikawaguchi Yard to Tokyo.
These are incredibly reminicant of the short lived Cargo Sprinters we had in Australia & pretty much follows the same concept. A bit of lore about these, 3 of these EMUs were built in 2002 by Kawasaki, Toshiba and Nippon Sharyo and operate every night except Sundays between Osaka and Tokyo. These trains run at top priority & can make the journey in 6 hour compared to the standard freighters that take anywhere between 7 to 10 hours depending on their timetable. As mentioned earlier if you're ever in the area and want to see it this train leaves Osaka about 23:00.
Monday the 24th of November 2025.
20251124 Mc250-1 50 Fukushima Osaka
50レ
I often wonder when I travel overseas if I'm doing the whole touristy thing right. I had an appiffany about half way through the trip when I was staying in South Korea & Mum asked me "if you weren't seeing trains, what would you be doing?" to which I had no idea.
You see other people going overseas & visiting all the touristy spots, eating local food & checking out temples, theme parks or going shopping & they all seem very content with what they've done with their trip. You certainly feel like a goose when people ask what you did with your holidays & all you can tell them is "Aside from drinking hideous amount of alcohol and smoking cheap ciggarettes, I sat around railway lines for the whole day hoping trains would turn up and half the time they wouldnt and the other half it wouldn't be in the circumstances you wanted it to turn up in."
The idea of us staying in Osaka was to have a break from seeing trains, go check out stuff around the centre of town, have a delicious curry at Coco's, drink some more and hit up a pachinko parlour or a nightclub. In the end we decided we would do our own things and reconviene later in the night. Thomas had wondered off to a Whiskey tasting factory, Cade & myself ended up going for a wander only to find everywhere was far too crowded to go into. A sign of the overtourism that Japan has been facing (a problem which we were definently a part of).
Through a stroke of luck we discovered we were staying a 20 minute walk away from this level crossing where the MC250 series run through & with some impropdu research discovered the train was timetabled out of Osaka at 23:00. We set out for the crossing with a quick stop at Family Mart to get some Famichicki's & a few cans of Strong Zero. We then parked ourselves up at this crossing and took full advantage of Japan's public drinking laws (or lack there of).
I guess the takeaway from all of this is that this ended being one of my favourite nights. It was simple, just sitting with your mates chatting shit & watching trains go by whilst sinking cans. As fun as plan A might have been it would not have been anywhere near as enjoyable due to how many people there were out and about. I know its a stupid thing to complain about when youre in Japan's second biggest city.
But anyway, enough about my undiagnosed autism and more about the train.
Seen in the heart of Osaka, MC250-1 is seen passing Fukushima station (which is in the top left corner of the frame) working JR / Sagawa Express freight train #50 from Ajikawaguchi Yard to Tokyo.
These are incredibly reminicant of the short lived Cargo Sprinters we had in Australia & pretty much follows the same concept. A bit of lore about these, 3 of these EMUs were built in 2002 by Kawasaki, Toshiba and Nippon Sharyo and operate every night except Sundays between Osaka and Tokyo. These trains run at top priority & can make the journey in 6 hour compared to the standard freighters that take anywhere between 7 to 10 hours depending on their timetable. As mentioned earlier if you're ever in the area and want to see it this train leaves Osaka about 23:00.
Monday the 24th of November 2025.
20251124 Mc250-1 50 Fukushima Osaka