A Checklist for the Yamakatsu Blue Train Set

A couple of years ago I picked up an unopened box of Yamakatsu Blue Train Cards from the 1970s. I love trains, especially in Japan where pretty much every trip I've taken for the past 20 years has been by train.

I didn't open that box, but last week I found another one for a good price and decided to crack it open.  There is basically zero information about this set on the internet - no checklist, no year of release no nothing (including stuff in Japanese) so I thought doing so might provide a good opportunity to fill that void.  So this will be my first box-break post. And unlike most box breaks this one will serve the purpose of actually figuring out a bit more about what is in this set.

To begin, this is what the box looks like:

 Open it up and you've got 30 packs of cards with 2 cards per pack for 60 total.

 There are 3 prizes that also come with the box.  One is a little album that can hold 14 cards.  The other two are giant erasers shaped like trains.  There are 3 cards randomly inserted in packs which have a little red stamp on the back entitling anyone who pulls them to claim one of these prizes from the store where they bought them.

Then comes the fun part, opening the packs! As an added service to posterity, I have decided not to video myself opening the packs and will simply cut to the chase.

I got 60 cards, consisting of 37 different cards and 23 doubles. Since no checklist exists I have no idea how close this gets me to the set, but at least we now know there are no fewer than 37 cards in the set.

These are the cards I got:




This is what the backs of some of the cards look like (note the one in the lower right, which has the red prize stamp on it):

These are not just cards of random passenger trains.  All of them are long distance sleeper trains (called "Blue Trains" since the first one was Blue, but over the years they came in a variety of colors).  These trains have since been replaced by the Shinkansen, the last of them retired in 2015, but in the late 1970s when the Shinkansen network was a lot more limited they were at the peak of their popularity.  Each card depicts a different train which ran a different route and the back features each trains logo (which appears on a plate on the front of the engine).  Some train lines appear on more than one card (three of the ones I got appear on two different cards).  The cards aren't numbered but I think it makes sense to create a checklist based on the train names, so here goes in alphabetical order

Aizu
Amagi
Ariake
Asakaze
Akatsuki
Azusa
Fuji
Ginga
Hakuchou
Hakutsuru
Hayabusa
Hitachi
Hokuriku
Izumo
Kamome
Kii
Kinboshi (2)
Michinoku
Midori
Mizuho
Myoujou (2)
Nichirin
Okhotsk
Sakura (2)
Sazanami
Seto
Shinsetsu
Shiosai
Shirane
Shirasagi
Suisei
Toki
Tsurugi
Yamabiko

(the ones with a (2) after the name appear on two cards with different photos)

I really like these cards, the photography on some of them is really great and makes me want to go on a train trip.

I really wish there were more sets out there like this from that period.  As I said above, these are just long distance sleeper trains, which represent a tiny fraction of the overall variety of passenger trains in Japan.  There were a lot (and still are a lot) of local commuter trains done up in very vibrant colors which would have looked great on cards, but it seems such cards were never produced.

Anyway, there you go internet, your first stab at a checklist for the Yamakatsu Blue Train set.  I might try to pick up another box if I can find one cheap and break it open to see if I get closer to a set.  I'll update this checklist if I do!

My New Favorite Thing: Yamakatsu Blue Train Full Box!

 I was browsing around Yahoo Auctions last week looking for Yamakatsu baseball cards when suddenly something I had never seen before showed up in the list - a full box of Yamakatsu Blue Train cards.  In addition to baseball I am a huge train fan and I just love it when something has interdisciplinary appeal across my various hobby interests so I put a bid in and won.

"Blue Train" is a generic name that describes all long distance sleeper trains in Japan, whose cars are blue (though sometimes the engines that pull them are not).  They used to be extremely common sites, even as recently as the late 90s when I first arrived in Japan.  The spread of the Shinkansen network to almost every corner of the main islands from Kyushu to Hokkaido has basically made them redundant and the last one, the Hokutosei, retired in 2015 to much bittersweet fanfare.

 The box is great, it shows a picture of the "Fujii" - each blue train has its name and distinctive logo on the plaque on the front of the engine.  Inside the box you find right on top you find a mini album which would have been given out to recipients of atari cards.  The one I got features the Hayabusa, which looks similar to the one on the cover of the box but is actually a completely different train.

Two other recipients of atari cards would get these beauties, erasers shaped like Blue Train engines.

 The packs are wrapped in paper, very similar to the 1980 Yamakatsu baseball packs I have, and are stapled shut at the top.  The box contains 30 packs with 2 cards each, which retailed for 20 Yen back in the day.  I'm not sure what year the set was released in but I am guessing late 1970s.  The cards are small size, about the same as 1980s era Calbee baseball cards (or 1950 Bowman baseball cards for American collectors). The packs with atari cards in them are wrapped in plastic so the store owner could know which ones they were.

 I decided to open a pack.  These would be extremely easy for unscrupulous collectors to search through if there were any valuable single cards to chase, since the staples can be easily pried off the pack without damaging it and then resealed.  Not that I plan on doing that, but I wanted to keep the pack looking nice.

 Inside, there they are, about to see daylight for the first time in their 40 years or so of existence.

 Score!!!  I got the Myoujou (the red engine) and the Suisei!

 The backs of the cards show you the train's logo that appears on its engine, how far it travels (967.4 km and 965.9 km respectively), how long it takes (16:23, 15:43) and its average speed (59.3 kmph, 65.6 kmph).

It doesn't actually tell you where the train went from, but a little research reveals that the Myoujou went from Osaka to Kagoshima until the line was discontinued in 2008 (shortly before the Kyushu Shinkansen was introduced).  The Suisei went from Kyoto to Miyazaki and was discontinued in 2005 (ridership having fallen from 93% in 1989 to a mere 30% in 2004 - quite the rapid decline).

I'm not too sure how big the set is or how close I am likely to get by opening the box, but I am quite motivated to find out more.  The Japanese language internet doesn't turn up much information on them, save for this blog entry by someone who, like me, just bought a box and was quite excited by them!