Hello, Kapinozuka here.
This is continuing with the
report on "Shin-Misato
Railway Fair" held at the 'Lalaport Shin-Misato' shopping mall.
This time, we'll be reporting the inside of that car you've all been waiting for!
Shin-Misato Yume Kukan Café (Shinmisato Dream Space Cafe)
*The Yume Kukan Café closed at 16th Sep.
Booom!
Oshi 25-901 exterior view
Would you believe it, the Lalaport Shin-Misato had the passenger car for the "Yume Kukan" as preserved exhibit.
The "Yume Kukan" is the luxury train developed as the sleeper express, in the days when JR East was still new.
The train was formed from 3 cars; the Observatory Dining Car, Lounge Car, and the Sleeper car, and was often connected to
the Sleeper Express "Hokutosei" etc.
It retired in March 2008, but as there was only 1 car of each, there were limitations to the amount of people that managed
to travel on it.
So this is one of the trains the railway fans dream of.
The photo is that of the
Oshi 25-901, the dining car with the large observatory windows.
The Tokyu cars had created the car itself, while the interiors decorations and such were dealt by Tokyu Department Store
Company.
Oshi 25-901 Dining Car Emblem
The Dining Car Emblem.
Back when this car was still active, they served full-course French meals in this car.
At present, the Oshi 25-901 has is only on display, and does not allow for entry.
However, during the Shin-Misato Railway Fair, the car was specially opened for entry while it operated as a café.
And as seeing the inside of this train is a veeeeery rare opportunity, we couldn't let this chance slip by!
Kapinozuka and Tominon, shown steely resolve for the infiltration report!
Interior passage of Oshi25-901
There was a door as well, but as it was sealed to close off the car, so you had to enter from the neighboring passenger
car through the gangway passage.
It's so exciting even just to walk this narrow passage.
Oh and by the way, the room to the left is the kitchen.
Oshi 25-901 interior ceiling
The decoration of the interior ceiling was already just gorgeous.
The room was filled with soft light of the incandescent light bulb.
Table seats inside Oshi25-901
The table seats for four.
The seats with armrests, and the table with a lampshade.
The huge window with the fancy curtain.
One might mistake the place for a high-class hotel or something.
At the Yume Kukan Café, you could enjoy station bento lunch set and drinks.
Plus a happy service where the staff brings you the meal, wearing the waitress uniform from the dining car.
(Maid Train had taken charge of the operation of this Yume Kukan Café this time.)
There was a big screen tv in the car, and it happened to have a scenic video of a certain line from Hokkaido, so you could
enjoy imagining the scenery outside the window slide past and feel the atmosphere of traveling.
And for the deep fans, here are photographs.
Oshi25-901 Car No. sign
It's different to the standard font the JNR had been using, written in a special font.
The color or the text isn't white either, but gold color to match the car design.
Oshi25-901 Format Name Plate
And unexpectedly, the interior plate also was written in the same font.
This must be a specification special to the Yume Kukan.
Oshi25-901 Manufacturer Plate
On the railway cars, they normally have the manufacturer plate attached somewhere, but this Tokyu Car plate has design
different to that of the usual.
Markings on Oshi25-901 (Right)
Check out the markings on the joint surface of the exterior!
Starting with the right.
This here is written in the JNR standard font.
The [To-Oku] defines that this car belongs to the JR East
Tokyo Branch
Oku Train Center.
The limit of passenger on board is only 22 people!
The commuter train on the Yamanote Line etc. are over 140ppl per car,
so we can see that this car must be on another dimension or something.
Markings on Oshi25-901 (Left)
And the left side marking.
The format name, weight, and the car conversion ratio.
I'll leave out the explanation as it would take long.
The area closed by the white box is the mark of general inspection.
General inspection is would be similar to a car inspection, if you replaced it with a car as an example.
It has the year and month of the inspection (This one is Jan in the year 14 of Heisei era, so that's year 2002.) and it
also has the place of inspection (which is the Omiya General Car Yard for this one.)
For the passenger trains, the warrant usually last for 8 years, so the warrant would have expired as of January this year.
So if this was to be used on the business rail again, it must be re-inspected (along with "ther things to process.)
And lastly, a common sense (!?) for those that have Railways has their hobby, but lets just go through the random bunch of
numbers for those that aren't into the railways.
O shi 25-901
( a ) The Weight Class, this "O" is somewhere between 32.5t and 37.5t.
( b ) The use of passenger car, this "Shi" defines the dining cars.
( c ) The format of electric current used, and this "2" is the type that gets power supplied from one spot in the train and
shares with the whole train formation.
( d ) The style of the base car used, and 2~7 are the 2shaft bogie base cars.
( e ) The production number. The 900s or 9000s are the odd cars that are often used for prototypes etc.
So with that, I conclude the Shin-Misato Yume Kukan Café Oshi25-901 infiltration report.
By the way.
There is also another passenger car that had formed the "Yume Kukan" preserved at the Lalaport Shin-Misato.
Ohagfu25-901
The Ohafu25-901 is the lounge car.
Inside, there are relaxing sofa and piano etc. installed,
allowing passengers to chill out during their travel.
This is currently used by the food court "Station Kitchen",
and you can eat inside the car while the food court is open.
O ha fu 25-901
The format is pretty much the same as the previous one.
The only difference is that ( b ) part has changed. "Ha" defines second class seat car (nomal car), and "Fu" defines a car with brake van.
Brake van is basically a hand brake, so you can just remember it as a car with a conductor's room.
By Kapinozuka – Long time no see!
— Related Links —
(Japanese sites only)
Lalaport Shin Misato → Shin-Misato Railway Fair
http://www.lalaport-
shinmisato.com/campaign/lala_train_100805/index.html
Tokyu car corporation
http://www.tokyu-car.co.jp/
Maid Train
http://www.maidtrain.info/
Going off topic.
Kapinozuka had noticed an old timetable of the JNR from 1974 that happened to be there for some reason, and as I taught
Tominon how to decipher the timetable and went onto other things such as finding interesting names of stations and
detecting lines that had been abolished etc. the duration of the visit at the Yume Kukan Café had reached about an hour
and a half.
Even the staffs of the Maid Train were surprised, saying something like "they might have broken the record for the longest
stay...". I hereby thank all the staff.
Oh and another side note.
[Limited Edition] J.R. Ltd. Exp. Sleeping Cars Series 24 Type
25 `Yumekukan` with Electric Locomotive Type EF81(7-Car Set)
How about enjoying the beauty of Yume Kukan in the world of model trains too?
We have one in stock that we will release to commemorate the event. Sorry if you miss out.
*The item went out of stock within 10 or so minutes since this article was posted. Thanks for the order.