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is a concept for piggybacking (that is, carrying narrow-gauge wagons on broader-gauge flatwagons) by the trainload rather than one wagon at a time. The need arose when Japan's

Hokkaido Railway Company The is one of the constituent companies of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group), and is often referred to using its official abbreviation of . It operates intercity and local rail services in Hokkaido, Japan. The company introduced Kitaca, a sm ...

(JR Hokkaido) was planning for

standard-gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

Hokkaido Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed Shinkansen rail line that links up with the Tōhoku Shinkansen in northern Aomori Prefecture in Honshu and continues on into the interior of Hokkaido through the undersea Seikan Tunnel. Construction started in May ...

high-speed trains to operate in the undersea

Seikan Tunnel The Seikan Tunnel ( ja, 青函トンネル, or , ), is a dual-gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern isla ...

from 2016. The problem was that narrow-gauge freight trains did not operate at high speeds. Since the tunnel is 53.85 km (33.46 mi) long, incorporating slower trains into the timetable would significantly disrupt high-speed services. The solution was to mount narrow-gauge freight trains on to faster

freight trains.

Development

When the

opened between and in 2016, high-speed Shinkansen trains would need to share the

dual gauge In railway engineering, "gauge" is the transverse distance between the inner surfaces of the heads of two rails, which for the vast majority of railway lines is the number of rails in place. However, it is sometimes necessary for track to c ...

tracks through the

linking the main island of

Honshu , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separ ...

with

Hokkaido is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

. While in the tunnel, freight trains on the narrow-gauge rails were limited to . The "Train on Train" concept involved loading narrow-gauge KoKi 100 container wagons on to specially built standard-gauge wagons to allow operation at speeds of up to . , although the plan had not been implemented, speeds were reported as having been increased to after extensive testing. Piggyback by the trainload rather than one wagon at a time is more efficient

Piggyback by the trainload rather than one wagon at a time is more efficient

The "Train on Train" concept was announced in 2006 and a full-size mockup vehicle was built and demonstrated at Naebo Works in 2007. The next phase was to build a prototype train for actual operation.

JR Freight , or , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It provides transportation of cargo nationwide throughout Japan. Its headquarters are in Shibuya, Tokyo near Shinjuku Station. The Japan Railways Group was foun ...

was developing new Class EH800 20/25 kV AC electric locomotives to haul these and other trains through the tunnel. A "Forum 2050" presentation by JR Hokkaido in 2010 stated that using a "double traverser" arrangement would allow an entire train to be transferred to and from the Train on Train wagons in approximately 10 minutes.

References

External links

Animated video showing operation
{{in lang, ja Hokkaido Railway Company High-speed rail in Japan Seikan Tunnel Freight rolling stock

Development

See also

References

External links