The Keio Inokashira Line (京王井の頭線, Keiō Inokashira-sen) is a 12.7km line in the western suburbs of Tokyo operated by the private operator Keio Corporation. It may be short but it packs in 17 stations and a mixture of express and stopping services at 3-4 minute intervals. It's a busy route with around 550,000 passengers per day. The line runs between Shibuya (4th busiest station in the World) to Kichijōji through densely packed suburbs with houses and shops being built right up to the edge of the line. In recent years the railway has been planting flowers to stabilise the embankments (with the side benefit of improving views for passengers) All services are operated by 1000 Series EMUs, these are unique to the line as it uses a different gauge to the other Keio routes. There are 29 of these 5 car units delivered in 3 batches over 10 years with some detail differences between batches. The cabs are painted one of 7 pastel colours, with one unit having a rainbow scheme. While I don't think this route should be full price, it would be good at a lower price for the short length and with a mix of service types, overtakes and tightly packed stations it could be fun for those wanting a short but intensive experience.
I'm getting together a list of a whole lot of Japanese rail companies with dedicated licensing departments/contacts (of which the majority do), but in looking for Keio's contacts I found this reference on their wikipedia page: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/京王電鉄#鉄道関連商品の許諾 Now because I don't speak Japanese I am using chrome and its translate page functionality. Unfortunately it's having difficulties here so I can't tell if there was a company policy to only rarely give permission to video and video game productions until a change in 2016, or between 2016 and 2017, or from 2016 onward. One of them is true. At very least it phrases it as there are able to be exceptions though (or there was exceptions if it was only a rule in the past) . If anyone can speak Japanese and provide clarity that would be something I'd be thankful for.
Oh a Japanese commuter route would be epic. Wakayama & Sakurai Lines was one of my favourte DLC for Train Simulator. I'd love to see that route, or anything similar, in TSW. I'm less fond of high speed though, I'd prefer a commuter route over any Shinkansen route.
I've taken a look at the Wikipedia article. The article states that the change of policy happened on 7/7/17, and that cab view DVDs started to be sold on 21/7/17. I would say that the correct translation would be that the railway did not allow for cab view and video game appearances until 7/7/17, when the new company president changed the poilcy so that cab view and video game appearances could be licenced in a similar to licencing the production of model trains. Apparently there were a few exceptions to the no commercialisation rule that they used to have, as there were a couple of DVDs that came out in 2011 and 2013. Additionally, Keio's trains made an appearance in the A-Train games prior to the change of policy. Overall, I would say that it would at least be worth inquiring about a licencing agreement for TS202X and TSW. If they agree, maybe we could have the Inokashira Line in TSW and the Keio Line in TS202X.
Just posted by an awesome channel that does atmospheric videos: And this channel also has nicely done trainspotting videos:
