Yes it is real

[RAM]

I found this on another board. I thought it is interesting....trackage with trolleys in a modern Japanese city. Note the turning of the engine and near the end, a pantograph on the roof of one of the coaches (maybe for traffic signal actuation).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Diw9MSUVo#watch-main-area

[pdlethbridge]

Apparently the engine has a built in lifting system that allows it to clear the rails and turned and lowered back on the rails. Must be a pretty light engine.

[Jim Banner]

I wonder if perhaps the locomotive is electrically heated.  There was no belch of smoke and soot when it first started up after sitting for a while, and only a bit of steam from the stack.  I thought they might be burning propane to keep the exhaust clean, but when you are running on an electrically powered rail system, why not use an electrically heated boiler?  Particularly when locally produced hydro power is cheap and imported fossil fuel is expensive.

Incidentally, you don't have to go half way around the world to see street cars in regular service.  Look on youtube or Google "Toronto street cars."  Just don't call them trams or trolleys or you might not find anything.  Toronto was one of the few North American cities who were not bamboozled by General Motors into giving up their clean, quiet, long lasting street cars and trolley buses in favour of smelly, noisy, short lived diesel buses.  Vancouver BC and San Fransisco were two others.  It took fifty years, but a lot of cities today are going back to electrically powered mass transit.

Jim

p.s. to PD,
I wasn't sure if the lift was built into the locomotive or into the street.  But the locomotive would seem more logical as they already have a source of pressure available on board, live steam and maybe air.
J.

[RAM]

no the locomotive is not electrically heated.  There is only one place where they show the pantograph up.  I also found some more films on youtube.  I liked that man powered switching.  Now who was it that said that was not prototype.

[pdlethbridge]

I said the loco as there was nothing in the tracks that looked like it could lift something

[rogertra]

The trolley poles are probably required to activate either the switches and or signals along the line.

Is that loco actually steam driven or does it have some other means of power, a diesel engine perhaps?

As for the "belch of smoke and soot", if it is steam powered then a correctly fired steam loco doesn't emit either.

I did like the built in turntable.  Reminds of what they used on some track inspection cars here in North America.  Looked and sounded as though the one in the video was pneumatic, you could hear the air charging the piston to raise the loco and then the hiss of air as it was lowered.

[poliss]

It's diesel powered. Here's what I found. "A steam locomotive used to run throughout Matsuyama for 67 years from 1888. It is a diesel-powered street car restored in 2001. The townscape with the classical street car with steam from the smoke generator is sure to bring a sense of nostalgia."

[rogertra]

It's diesel powered. Here's what I found. "A steam locomotive used to run throughout Matsuyama for 67 years from 1888. It is a diesel-powered street car restored in 2001. The townscape with the classical street car with steam from the smoke generator is sure to bring a sense of nostalgia."

Thought so.  :-)

Look at the video again, you can tell from the views into the cab, when the engine is backing up towards the camera, that there are no steam controls visible.

[Jim Banner]

What do you figure the steering wheel like control on the left side controls?  At one point it looks like the driver is turning it.

Jim