What’s the story behind Japan’s Weirdest People Mover?
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- Опубликовано: 28 авг 2024
- In a very suburban part of Japan's Chiba Prefecture, there is the planned community known as the Eucalyptus Hill (Yukarigaoka). Here, a small people mover known as the Yukarigaoka line runs little loops around the development. These ancient monorails are operated by Yamaman, a real estate company.
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Date of filming: May 31, 2018
I feel you could make your entire channel just about Japanese trains and still wouldn’t have lost any content yet
I totally could. I’m hoping to go back soon so I can refresh my footage a little.
@@northernidaho5750You can take the train from the airport going to the City of Tokyo, Japan.
@@northernidaho5750You can take the train from the airport going to the City of Tokyo, Japan.
A kawaii koala powered rail line? Man, trains are awesome
Non air-conditioned people mover sure makes this line unique!
Hong Kong's MTR sure has tons of real estate development along their rail lines!
I would like to see a descriptive video about the Yurikamome Line some day! Trains really ARE awesome!
The yurikamome was my favorite as a kid. I lived nearby and rode it often! But the footage I have of it isn’t great. I’ll have to go back.
@@ac3115 well, the MTR is viewed as a real estate company first and a rail provider as a side hustle. They do post numbers more similar to a Japanese “big 15” railway than a normal transit operator.
I'm that one tourist (there was 2 of us actually) who got off the train at Yukarigaoka. Specifically to ride that people mover of course. You've answered the question I've had for the past decade as to why it has a koala mascot when the line has no apparent connection to Australia!
It is possibly the only non-airconditioned public transport vehicle in the country as even the 1950's trams still in service have been retrofitted with aircon.
You’re my kind of tourist!
Fun facts about Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus isn't native to Japan! Most species of the Eucalyptus genus are native to Australia, but they're also native to adjacent areas of New Guinea and Indonesia, and one species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the southern Philippines. Eucalyptus deglupta is known as rainbow eucalyptus because as a combination of air and sunlight react with its bright green bark, the long strips turn from green to shades of red, orange, blue, purple and even pink. Because it sheds intermittently, the trees color’s are in a constant state of change, and will never repeat the same pattern. The oldest definitive Eucalyptus fossils are from Patagonia in South America, where eucalypts are no longer native, though they have been introduced from Australia. Eucalyptus regnans or mountain ash, native to Tasmania and Victoria, is the tallest of all flowering plants in the world, its tallest measured living specimen named Centurion, stands at around 100 meters tall in Tasmania. Compared to conifers, Coast Douglas-fir is about the same height, only coast redwood is taller!
Most eucalypts are not tolerant of severe cold, Eucalypts do well in a range of climates but are usually damaged by anything beyond a light frost of −5 °C. The hardiest are the snow gums, such as Eucalyptus pauciflora native to eastern Australia, which is capable of withstanding cold and frost down to about −20 °C. Eucalyptus blossoms have no petals. The entire “bloom” consists of hundreds of stamens emerging from a central cone-like bud. They come in a range of colors, including white, bright red, vibrant orange, deep pink, and lime green. The abundance of stamens translates to an abundance of pollen. And eucalyptus trees can use as much pollen as possible. They have few natural pollinators because of high concentrations of cineole, used as medicine for its anti-bacterial, antiseptic, and anti-fungal properties. Because of the cineole, only the koala bear, ring-tail possum, and a few insects can eat eucalyptus leaves and bark.
I thought eucalyptus was native to white college girls’ dorm bathrooms?
Rubber-tired systems are interesting! For rubber-tired metro systems like Montreal, Santiago, Mexico City, Lausanne, and Paris, they have faster acceleration, along with the ability to climb or descend steeper slopes than would be feasible with conventional rail tracks, shorter braking distances that allow trains to be signaled closer together, quieter rides, and greatly reduced rail wear. But at the same time, the higher friction and increased rolling resistance cause many disadvantages like higher energy consumption, a higher cost of maintenance, loss of the traction-advantage in inclement weather, and tires that frequently need to be replaced, contrary to rails using steel wheels. Tires can break down during use and turn into particulate matter, which can be hazardous, also coating surrounding surfaces in dirty rubber dust. During the German occupation of Paris of WWII, the Metro system was used to capacity, with relatively little maintenance performed. At the end of the war, the system was so worn that thought was given as to how to renovate it. Thus, rubber-tired metro technology was applied and developed by Michelin, who provided the tires and guidance system, in collaboration with Renault, who provided the vehicles. Though the first idea for rubber-tyred railway vehicles was the work of Scotsman Robert William Thomson, the original inventor of the pneumatic tyre.
Rubber-tired funicular systems also exist, like Istanbul's Tünel, the second-oldest fully underground urban railway in the world after the London Underground, and oldest in continental Europe. Created by French engineer Eugène-Henri Gavand after noticing people struggling up and down Yüksek Kaldırım Avenue and opened in January 1875. Another rubber-tyred funicular is the Funiculaire du Havre in the French port city of Le Havre. It first operated with unreliable steam coaches before switching to electric in 1911. Le Havre's funicular originally opened in 1890, but like eighty percent of the city, the funicular was destroyed during the numerous WWII air raids, so they had to rebuild it from scratch.
I never realized Paris’ metro didn’t have rubber tires until after the war!
Once again, you’ve featured a unique and awesome little transit system!!! Thank you for providing interesting and exciting features and showing how it works and is ridden. Awesome!!!
Here are some facts about koalas in honor of the kawaii koalas: There is only one species of Koala in the world. It is the only extant member of the family Phascolarctidae, whose closest living relatives are the common wombats. The word "koala" is thought to originate from one of the Australian Aboriginal languages, Dharug, from the word "gula" which roughly translates to ‘no water’. And this might explain why. In the Australian bush, koalas rarely drink water as the majority of their water intake comes from eating fresh eucalyptus leaves. Koalas drinking water is uncommon in the wild, although they can do so if necessary, especially during heat waves, droughts or bushfires. Koalas have an unusual fibre-digesting organ called a caecum. Other mammals, including humans, also have a caecum, but the Koala’s is very long (200 cms) and it has a blind end. It contains millions of bacteria which break down the fibre into substances which are easier to absorb. Even so, the Koala is still only able to absorb 25% of fibre eaten, hence their need to eat large amounts of leaves. The koala’s digestive system is particularly good at tolerating its toxic eucalyptus diet, which, even in small amounts, can often be poisonous and fatal to most animals when ingested. Special liver enzymes and symbiotic gut bacteria help to break down poisonous compounds, thus allowing koalas to survive on a diet of eucalyptus leaves. They can eat up to a kilogram a day without even breaking a sweat!
Koalas in the southern parts of Australia are considerably larger and have thicker fur than those in the north. This is thought to be an adaptation to keep them warm in the colder southern winters. Koalas have 5 digits on each front paw, two of which are opposed to the others, much like our thumbs are able to be moved differently from the fingers. This helps them to hold firmly onto the branches and to grip their food. The 2nd and 3rd digits on their hind paws are fused together to form a grooming claw. A mature male has a dark scent gland in the center of his white chest which exudes a dark, sticky substance. He rubs this on his trees to indicate to other Koalas that this is his territory. The Joey stays in its mother’s pouch for about 6 or 7 months, drinking only milk. Before it can tolerate gumleaves, which are toxic for most mammals, the joey must feed on a substance called ‘pap’ which is a specialized form of the mother’s droppings that is soft and runny. This allows the mother to pass on to the joey special micro-organisms from her intestine which are necessary for it to be able to digest the gumleaves.
You always provide many interesting facts, but I think you outdid yourself today. I read the whole thing twice.
Now one question: what’s this thing about koalas and chlamydia I keep hearing about?
Miami has a similar setup. This always struck me as one of the best uses for a people mover-being the last mile solution for a station on a more substantial rail line.
This kind of reminds me of the Las Colinas people mover in Texas. It’s now closed, but it moved people from apartments to office buildings, and was manually operated.
Japan is just an amazing country 🤩
Hi Thom...
I'm watching from work again, this time from Coney Island Stillwell Ave Terminal, on the F line...
I was hoping you had a shot of the operating cab so I could see the master controller... oh well...😕
Thanks for yet another fun and informative post. ☮️
It reminds me a bit of the Las Colinas APT, a people mover system in the Las Colinas commercial development near Dallas. It was always a bit of a white elephant; it took 10 years to build and was only a fraction of its original intended size when it opened in 1989, but it actually gained a connection to the DART light rail network in 2014. Sadly it shut down during the COVID pandemic and all signs show that it won't be reopening.
I’m sad about that, I was hoping to ride it someday
Never in my wildest dreams would I see someone talk about the Yamaman Line in English. Nice job.
All these western RUclipsrs just do the Shinkansen and the Sunrise. I have the advantage of having lived in Japan for 10 years.
Exactly. On top of that your pronounciation of native names is top-notch, which makes your videos more natural. Keep it up.
Japan is such a fascinating place. Thanks for sharing, what a smarter way to do suburbs and looks like a pretty good use case for a people mover. As for real-estate companies building trains, I"ve heard some go so far as to offer Brightline as an example of this.
Oh yeah, that’s an interesting case
Not a real-estate example, but if you're ever doing a video compiling trains or train lines owned or operated by non-railway/transit companies, then it's worth mentioning Heathrow Airport.
They own the railway branch (tracks and tunnels) off the mainline, and are a parent company of the Heathrow Express service in association with GWR. They were also a parent company for the Heathrow Connect, which was eventually passed onto TfL and replaced by Elizabeth Line (initially ran as TfL Rail). It's one of the reasons why there are higher fees on the Elizabeth line into Heathrow, TfL pays Heathrow Airport to use those tracks.
Thanks for doing my suggestion Thom. It's also worth noting the appearance of these trains are heavily inspired by the BART legacy fleet. :)
I’m sure, if you still lived in Japan, that you could devote an entire second channel to vending machines.
Other than high speed rail, Just imagine if even one US master-planned developer did something like this
It’s not a people mover or a railway at that matter, but when Runcorn, England was developed after the war, there were a series of busways built linking the new town with the town centre… BRT before BRT was a thing
Interesting! Are they still in service?
So cool Tom
Every time I watch one of your Japan videos I want to go back ….SO MUCH!!!
How do you think editing makes me feel? Haha
Good news! Yamaman is looking at replacing the original trainsets with newly built ones in a few years, meaning it still has a few decades of life left, even though the line is pretty redundant with the frequent Yamaman-operated bus service running along the line.
The bus service was only added very recently to improve accessibility for certain passengers. I can’t find any sources confirming new trains, where did you find out about this?
@@Thom-TRA A few websites talk about it but Norimono News goes in the most detail. From the interview they conducted they haven't made a firm decision but it doesn't seem like Yamaman is that keen on retiring the system altogether. The buses literally hug the VONA system route so a large portion of the VONA users have already moved to the Koalabuses. That being said keeping the VONA infra and automating the line would probably be the best thing to do in the long run
That thing is like a life-sized ugly/cute preschool toy and it is AWESOME!
I know right! Little tikes about to sue for copyright infringement haha
I love the cute lil aminals
Looking at the system on Google Earth, the first section does not appear to be a double track, but bi-directional single track.
Yes, that's one of the many fascinating things about its operation.
Indian Railways also owns land adjacent to train tracks
Seattle has 8 new stations since you visited and on August 30th we open 3 more lol
I enjoy that video👍👍
I'm glad!
Nice video! That’s a really cool line! Instead of transit-oriented development, could this be considered transit-oriented transit?
Thom, you know the most unusual and fascinating rail lines all over the world!
Were there real estate companies that built rail lines? I know of one. In Cleveland, the Van Sweringen brothers built a high-priced suburb called Shaker Heights in the era roughly 1900-1929. In order to stimulate sales in their subdivision, they built an interurban line running into downtown Cleveland. Though the Vans are long gone, their little railroad (now classed as a light rail line) still runs as the Cleveland RTA blue and green lines.
Google Brightline
Kishu Railway is a quite weird company, but I don't know whether there is good amount of information on it in English. Kishu Railway owns a 2.7-km short line in Wakayama, but big chunk of the company's business is a real estate business. What makes the company weird is its resort properties are located far away from Wakayama. The railway and the resort operations are completely independent and unrelated to each other.
Yes, they have the small little rail buses! I’d like to take the different trains over in that part of Japan someday
Fantastic video sir, best one yet!
Thank you!
It's hard to draw the line between a train company that does real estate and a real estate company that does trains, but London's Metropolitan Railway is a good example of the former as are Seibu, Odakyu, Keio, Tokyu, Tobu, Keikyu etc in Tokyo, and historically the Kaikorai Tramway Co in little old Dunedin where I live in New Zealand. Even publicly owned transit developments like Bart or Elizabeth Line are built with the intention of opening up new areas for commuting, thus indirectly affecting property development
Brightline is another example and might even be an actual real estate company which runs trains (but doesn't own the trackage) than a railway company which does real estate.
I remember in an old Japanese train video from the 1990s, the Narita Express cuts through a hefty amount of farmland. All of the world urban farmland is very rare, this is not counting pumpkin patches or Christmas tree lots. I like how the monorail here has a BART style window. It's like I am looking at the child of of old BART train (1972) and Yamanote Line 103 series.
More like the child of BART and Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line 6000 series, don't really see the 103 resemblance. 😆
@@azuma892 hey thanks for the help.
Japanese trains are often very wierd but this is even wierder very good to see it in English keep it up thom
Privately owned public transport is rare all over the world too. In the US Hilton Waikaloa has their own personal monorail.
MOST commuter trains - in fact entire commuter Networks in Japan are built by real estate developers because everything must be vertical, literally or figuratively in Japan. That's the self-perpetuating design of the zaibatsu- which were forcibly devolved to keiretsu- groups of industries and businesses that integrate by feeding off each others products and services; this is the way global multinational companies used to operate and be stable for decades.. before short-term, short-sighted next-quarter stock pricing became fashionable.
When you actually spend time there you see how construction operates; a building goes up or comes down directly in its own footprint, unlike how western construction sprawls.
As early as the 1920s, land developers were building Rail lines to bring customers to their department stores and other businesses starting in Tokyo and expanding to every other major city.
Odakyu, Keio and Seibu all started as developers before they became railway companies; today that's their most public-facing functions. When they had the opportunity, they expanded outside of the cities largely with vacation destinations or hot springs resorts at the opposing end of the line.
Largely, EVERY private railway in Japan was a land developer first, buying or building a railway to bring customers to them.
Japan Rail is a latecomer to this idea- they didn't start integrating retail malls into stations until the 1960s.
That is a false interpretation of the facts. Most of those railroads are much older than the 1920s. While it’s true that many companies diversified their portfolios almost immediately upon founding, and then restarted doing that after a brief period of nationalization, to claim they were originally real estate developers is just not true.
And the department stores came later.
@@Thom-TRA large landowners or zaibatsu groups took over or extended unsuccessful point-to-point rail lines, with the specific aim of serving properties they owned. And because they usually also owned a bank, financing was essentially guaranteed.
The same thing happened in New York and many other places around the world in the 1800s- dozens of different lttle spot lines pop up because BIG BUSINESSMAN X HAS A GREAT IDEA... and then 5 or 10 years later it proves to be an endless money pit because he has no defined stable market. The difference is, they were rarely integrated by choice through an vertical owner with functionally unlimited funding, usually by force or bankruptcy and government intervention.
And- that's also what the Japanese government did during World War II, nationalizing or forcibly integrating many of these railways and businesses together for the war effort. Many of which were deliberately un-wound after the war either by their own choice, or by MacArthur's administration.
I didn’t ever think there would be such thing as a railway being built by a real estate company. I find that to be cool alright!
Most of them were like that in the 1800s
@@bootmii98 oh nice!
The Riffelalp Tram comes to mind but that's just for a hotel - and that kind of feeder is common in Switzerland.
Then again, the whole BVZ might have qualified, if only those pesky market forces and world politics hadn't intervened.
Guess enduring profitability would be the key to finding a similar system.
Thereapart, there's a certain Zoetermeer Stadslijn quality to the system - thanks for sharing - reckon 200 ¥ is ringfenced for my next Japan trip \m/
I’ve always wanted to ride the Riffelalp tram. I guess someday when I’ve saved up all my money to stay there…
Do you know why they chose to run around the loop counter clockwise which resulted in trains driving on the right on the double track section? Could ithey be the only vehicles in Japan driving on the right?
Actually, most of the bidirectional section is single track. But yes, at Kōen station, they do run on the right.
Trains are awesome, I guess!
The train is called Koala 1 😭
Edit: this feels like what mass transit in Animal Crossing would feel like.
One of the copyright-free songs in your video sounds like it was inspired by Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity. Certified classic Britpop!
Which one?
The one after the tram pulls into the station.
How does Facial Authentication for fare payment work? Do you take a picture of yourself when you buy a ticket or pass or is it connected to a local bank account?
You have to set it up beforehand
How many trainsets operate on the line? I'm assuming at least 2 and no more than 6.
There are 3
Heh, isn’t this essentially what Chiba Newtown Railway/Hokuso Railway was…except this one was cheap and efficient and the other…not quite?
日本語を話せますか。あなたの発音は本当に良いと思います。
はい、十年間札幌と東京で住んでいました。
Are there trains in Tokyo Narita, Haneda, and Osaka Airports?
Yes
You can fly with JAL, ANA, American, or United going there.
American:
LAX - HND • HND - LAX
DFW - HND • HND - DFW
JFK - HND • HND - JFK
United:
LAX - NRT • NRT - LAX
SFO - NRT • NRT - SFO
IAH - NRT • NRT - IAH
DEN - NRT • NRT - DEN
EWR - NRT • NRT - EWR
American Airlines fly to Tokyo Haneda and United Airlines fly to Tokyo Narita.
Real Estate Companies and trains are nothing new really. Look at the history of The Metropolitan Railway in London and Buckinghamshire. Not only is it considered to be the world's first Underground railway which lent its name to the word Metro Ⓜ but gave the GB terminology of Metro-Land a range of smaller villages and garden suburbs connected to London via the Metropolitan line. One of the main reasons why it extends in the Buckinghamshire countryside from the heart of the city of London.
It used to go much further out and original plans were to link London with Birmingham with garden villages in between but political events got in the way. Wars
What? I can't even spell the name
Am I hearing things or is this rubber-tired people-mover making a clickety-clack sound?
When a train’s this old, it’ll make any noise