Heritage route
SL Paleo Express
Kumagaya → Mitsumineguchi · Japan
SL Paleo Express in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 57 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 39 min
- Average speed
- 22 km/h
- Top speed
- 60 km/h
- Operator
- Chichibu Railway
- Train
- C58 363 + 12 series
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 1988
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
The closest steam to Tokyo: wartime C58 363 huffs four retro coaches from Kumagaya into the Chichibu hills past Nagatoro’s rock terraces — running since 1988.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1926309 — 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 3 m from it
- Checked against the running timetable via Transitous: our line sits under 100 m from the shape of CR
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Read more on Wikipedia (in JA) ↗
More heritage routes
- Durango & Silverton
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Theroux’s Old Patagonian Express: 750 mm gauge, 1922 steam locomotives and wood-stove-heated wooden coaches across the steppe.
Wikipedia ↗ - Sagano Scenic Railway
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 ↗ - SL Gunma
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.
Wikipedia (JA) ↗
More train routes in Japan.