Tuesday 4 April 2017

The Railway Museum Update, Part 2: NaDe6141

Electric car NaDe6141 is exhibited in the Railway Museum

In addition to the new exhibition, namely the electric locomotive EF55 1, I obtained the other good news at the Railway Museum. That was news with regard to an electric car, NaDe6141 of the Class NaDe6110, which has been exhibited in the museum since 2007.

On March 10th, the Cultural Affairs Council of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology nominated NaDe6141 for inclusion on the list of Japan's important cultural properties. NaDe6141 is known as Japan's first electric car with bogies. It was built by Shimbashi Factory of the Japanese Government Railways in 1909. It was once moved to Meguro-Kamata Electric Railway (present Tokyu Corporation), but returned to the Japanese National Railways in 1972 to be preserved as the Railway Monument of Japan.

NaDe6141 has a 16 m-long body with long seats and six doors per car as a commuter transporter. Its capacity is 92 passengers. The electric system is 600 V DC overhead. The gauge size is 1,067 mm. The greatest feature of this old electric car is its two long trolley poles. To be honest, NaDe6141 was not attracting much attention from me, as it was plain and inconspicuous, but now I understood how valuable this old car is.

For your information, Japan's first subway electric car, namely unit number 1001, was also nominated as one of Japan's important cultural properties. As you may know, unit 1001 is exhibited in the Subway Museum next to Kasai Station on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line.

Congratulations NaDe6141 and 1001!

Front view of NaDe6141

Official information about the Class NaDe6110 electric car: