Riding Hiroshima’s Strange Rubber-Wheel Metro 🇯🇵 (Astram Line)
Good morning guys from Hashma. Today we’re going to be taking something that’s very unique to this city and that’s the Astramm line. Now this is like a metro but not really a metro. It has rubber wheels. It also has metal wheels. It’s kind of a a hybridized system and I’ve never ridden anything like this before. It’s not technically a metro like I’ve said, but we’re going underground. So, I guess it’s like a subway, but then it goes above ground and runs on a rail. So, here we are. This is the Astramm line here where at Honduri Station, and the HRT stands for Hashimma Rapid Transit. So, it’s a rapid transit system, but it’s a metro on rubber wheels kind of. And we’re gonna go to um where is it? Oshita. We’ll go to Oshita because I think that’ll get us uh enough of a view for it to go above ground if my calculations are correct. It’s first time me using this as well. So, we’ll get ourselves a ticket. English. Information will be displayed in English. We get a ticket. What’s How much was a day pass? Actually, 900. We don’t need that, right? We’re going to cheat that 260. See if I have the right change. So, we’ve got our ticket here for 260. Again, I’ll put the conversion on the screen now. That’ll be just over a pound. And then we’ve also got our receipt. Now, you may be wondering, why does this have rubber wheels and not just have um normal metal wheels and run on a rail? Well, the reason is I did I did a little quick look up on this and it seems to be that it’s a quieter and smoother ride because the rubber wheels will dampen the the vibration, but also it allows it to go on steeper gradients than a Metro typically would be able to with uh steel wheels because of the the it doesn’t have enough friction on the steel wheels to get up a certain bank. But this I guess when we come out we might come up quite steeper uh quite a lot steeper than we would on let’s say a metro. So yeah it’s interesting and it’s a first for me and it’s a first for you hopefully. Just put our ticket in here. There’s only one direction we can go. So I guess we just get on anywhere. Look at the station as well. I, you know, a lot of Japanese stations have a sort of similar vibe. It’s like, it’s the little things that make it look a little different, I guess, like the the lighter color um banister or rail or whatever you want to call it on the escalator, but to be expected as well in Japan, it’s all nice and clean. You you’ll never see any litter on the floor. Right, let’s get on this. I assume this is where to go. We’re getting off at So guys, I’ll be quiet cuz you’re not really meant to talk on Metros here, although those guys over there are, which is an exception, but I’m trying to be respectful. Uh, but this is absolutely immaculate. Just look at the floor. Very clean. I believe this was opened in the ‘9s. I’ll put a I’ll put a correction up if I’m wrong. I think it was 94 this was opened. And you can see you’ve got sort of the uh the handrail at the top with the little handles uh so you can hold on to. Um the seats are very comfortable actually. Supportive uh different material that you would normally see. But uh really really nice. Heat. Heat. Looks like we’re coming up now above ground. [Music] [Music] So, here’s where you can sort of see that steeper gradient that we came up there. I don’t know, maybe a Metro could have done that, but um I can understand how the rubber wheels would help a lot with that. And where the next stop and then hopefully we’ll be able to see from the outside, see the train a lot better. And that those rubber wheels You are standing. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Leo for nothing. Well, that was a fun ride. Um, let’s see if we can get to the front before it takes off. I doubt we will just to see the front of the train. We can just say see the front, but we can see them rubber wheels. And you’ll see it’s on guided tracks there as well on the side. So, you’ve got a metal rail with rubber wheels, but it looks just like a normal metro from the wheels up. What a cool piece of engineering, eh? Right now, I need to go back to where I came from. This is the only reason I came up here to this part of Hashima. A basic looking station, but it gets the job done. And like a lot of things here, the color scheme is a bit odd. It feels a bit dead. That kind of like bluey greeny color, turquoisey cyan, more more like that cyan color reminds me very much of the USSR. If you’re ever in a post Soviet country, um a lot of like hospitals or old like public buildings were all coated in this uh paint that was that color. Usually like halfway up the wall. But yeah, it’s like it’s not dirty here, but you can definitely tell it’s well used. And it’s it’s aged like you can see up here. Um little bit different maybe to what you would think uh stereotypically from Japan that everything would be pristine and perfect. There’s no litter. Obviously it’s well looked after and it’s clean. But I do see a lot of things that look dated in comparison to like let’s say when we were in Warsaw the metro there especially the newest line was like immaculate. It was perfect. Even in Mumbai actually the Mumbai metro the aqua line was uh immaculately clean and everything was nice and modern but this serves a purpose I mean I’m really I’m being pedantic really to pick on these sorts of things right let’s head out so I’ve noticed as well oh there is a lift never mind right then let’s head down only an escalator up, but there is a lift down. So, if you were um if you had uh disability or something, you wouldn’t have any trouble. You could just hit the lift, right, all done. And as you’d expect, vending machines as soon as you leave the station. Yeah, guys, let me know what you think about this uh transit system. Do you think it really has a place in other parts of the world? Or maybe in your city, could you use something like this? It’s really odd. It almost looks like a Montreal from the bottom or like a subway, but it also looks like a metro because it’s both above ground and it’s underground, which I know the New York subway does. Yeah, a really unique concept in motion there. It’s nice to see. Nice to see something different. Hey guys, I’m in a train station currently um that goes up to just a normal uh rail line so I can try and get a little bit of a better shot for you of the um Hashimma rapid transit system. I even tried like climbing up some of those uh apartment buildings, but they were all locked and the only one that wasn’t had like a sign like do not go up blah blah blah blah had cameras all over. I was like don’t want to get in trouble this early on my trip. So, I’ll stand here and I’ll try and get some shots with my phone when one goes past because we just didn’t get a good look at it before. [Music] [Applause] Right, guys. I hope you’ve enjoyed that video. If you want to see other things like, let’s say, the Osaka Metro or the Fukuaka Metro, I’ve got it all on the channel, guys. There’s lots of Japanese public transportation videos on the channel. And like I mentioned earlier, I’ve got ones in India and Poland, all over the place. So, if you like public transport, I’ve got plenty on the channel. But if you like other things like food and general travel, it’s all here on the channel. Hope you’ve enjoyed that, guys, and I’ll see you on the next one.
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Today, we ride a unique form of public transport. It looks like a metro, it feels like a metro, but it’s technically a rapid transit system. Not only does it look like a metro at first glance. Once you look a little deeper, you’ll see this machine is actually running along on rubber tyres. A super cool and unique form of transport that I had a blast riding to show you guys.
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1 Comment
coolest thumbnail yet I think damn