Thursday, December 26, 2013

荒川車庫 Arakawa Streetcar Yard


As we have a young train enthusiast in our midst, we took a trip down to the Arakawa Streetcar yard. This is a small but neat little attraction along the Toden Arakawa line. Bonus- it's free! The yard has it's own streetcar stop, which is near Kajiwara.


At the yard, one can check out all of the streetcar controls and board two cars from now defunct lines. Both of the cars had small exhibits on Tokyo streetcar history, as well as some books to peruse, and a stamp station to get a souvenir stamped paper.

 

 You can't enter the actual yard, but you can easily view it, and see how the workers do maintenance above and below the cars. At certain times during the day trains will pull in and out of the yard for regular checks. We saw the pink car being checked.


Our budding photographer documenting his adventures.


One of the exhibit cars.


Back by Kajiwara, one can visit the Meibi sweets shop and try a monaka shaped like a streetcar. Monaka is a sweet bean paste filled wafer. These come in a variety of boxes that are customized to look like the Toden Arakawasen.


The sweets shop also sells streetcar pins, and the local toy store sells old-school metal streetcar wind-up toys. A perfect retro afternoon excursion.


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