JAPAN: East Japan Railway has put into service its fleet of Series E131 EMUs on the relatively lightly used lines serving the Boso peninsula in Chiba Prefecture with effect from the March 13 timetable change.
The 12 two-car units replace four-car Series 209 EMUs built between 1992 and 2004. The Series 131 sets feature stainless steel-bodyshells and have a maximum speed of 110 km/h. Powered bogies under one vehicle have three-phase asynchronous traction motors fed by VVVF inverters with silicon carbide semiconductors.
While the Series 209 sets required staffing by a driver and conductor, the Series E131s are operated by the driver alone. The cabs have monitors providing video supervision of passenger activity at the entrance doors, and there are four CCTV cameras per car. The doors themselves are opened by passengers using push buttons, but the driver is able to close all doors simultaneously from the cab. Each unit has includes wheelchair spaces and an accessible toilet.
At 2 950 mm wide, the E131 bodyshells are 150 mm wider than those of the Series 209 cars, enabling 10 mm deeper seats to be fitted. The seats are arranged longitudinally, as commonly found on metro rolling stock.
Two of the units have been fitted with track monitoring equipment to support condition-based maintenance of the infrastructure.
