Only three of these carriages exist, they're refurbs of old red 50 series carriages and designed by Eiji Mitooka. He's somewhat famous in Japan and designed a lot of JR Kyushu's special rolling stock, so some people have some strong opinions on the changes he makes. There are some matching DE10 locomotives that run with or sometimes instead of 58654. The original Kumamoto-Hitoyoshi route SL Hitotoshi ran is currently out of service, and it's not known if/when it'll go back into service. Bridges along the line over the Kuma river were destroyed in floods in 2020, so, it has run north from Kumamoto to Tosu instead since then. This is a shame since the original route is both beautiful and ridiculous (in a good way). The type of smoke deflector used is 'gate deflector', since they kinda resemble torii gates. Note that they're slightly different from the similar Witte-type deflectors often used in Europe, they're held up bars on either end of the deflector plate making the 'gate' shape.
Only three of these carriages exist, they're refurbs of old red 50 series carriages and designed by Eiji Mitooka. He's somewhat famous in Japan and designed a lot of JR Kyushu's special rolling stock, so some people have some strong opinions on the changes he makes. There are some matching DE10 locomotives that run with or sometimes instead of 58654.
The original Kumamoto-Hitoyoshi route SL Hitotoshi ran is currently out of service, and it's not known if/when it'll go back into service. Bridges along the line over the Kuma river were destroyed in floods in 2020, so, it has run north from Kumamoto to Tosu instead since then. This is a shame since the original route is both beautiful and ridiculous (in a good way).
The type of smoke deflector used is 'gate deflector', since they kinda resemble torii gates. Note that they're slightly different from the similar Witte-type deflectors often used in Europe, they're held up bars on either end of the deflector plate making the 'gate' shape.
Thanks for the information!