Heritage route
SL Gunma
Takasaki → Minakami · Japan
View on the map →Wikipedia (JA) ↗
Restored D51 498 “Degoichi” and C61 20 haul retro coaches up the Joetsu Line on weekends: steam echoing off the Tone gorge under Tanigawa’s wall.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1924544 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 5 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR East — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
- See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it
Questions and answers
How long is the SL Gunma?
The SL Gunma runs 59 km from Takasaki to Minakami.
How long does the SL Gunma take?
The fastest scheduled journey is ≈ 2 h for the 59 km. That is an average of 30 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 65 km/h.
Who runs the SL Gunma?
JR East, with D51 498, C61 20 steam.
How old is the SL Gunma?
The line has been in service since 1988. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.
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1882 gold-rush narrow gauge: steam-hauled ever since, on the Highline ledge blasted 120 m above the Animas River gorge.
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Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
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A retired JR alignment above the Hozugawa rapids: twenty-five slow minutes of maples and gorge that the modern main line skips through tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗ - Lézard Rouge
The Bey of Tunis’s 1910 saloon cars, freshly restored: creeping into the Selja gorge’s ochre cliffs, photo stops included, in phosphate country.
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More train routes in Japan.