Abandoned Kansai

Usually I don’t post current photos, because… well… there is no urgency to urbex and my kind of photos actually age rather well, because… well… they don’t actually age, while the locations keep on doing so.
Today I was sitting in a Shinkansen waiting to continue my travels (spring exploration season is basically over, it’s already hot and humid in parts of Japan!), when all of a sudden a gray Shinkansen pulled up next to us. Its destination? Test Run. Now that’s unusual… Half asleep I grabbed my camera and took a photo without paying attention to the settings  – so of course it turned out to be way too dark. (In moments like this I wish I’d had a smartphone and let that damn thing do all the work…) That’s when the realization kicked in that this might be a really rare sighting, so I got off the Shinkansen I was on, not knowing when it or the gray one would leave, to take some more photos – and I once again was made aware why I like taking pictures of abandoned places so much: no time pressure, no movement, plenty of opportunity to check the results before moving on. Of course I had none of these luxuries in this situation, because both trains were about to leave and neither would wait for me. So my apologies that the results are not exactly great. Most photos are too dark and/or blurry, either because I was moving or because the gray Shinkansen was…
BUT… It turns out that the photos are worth publishing anyway, because afterwards I learned from the almighty Google that the model ALFA-X ” is a one-of-a-kind prototype and is virtually impossible for the general public to ever see” “Catching a glimpse of the ALFA-X is considered a major highlight for railfans. It serves as the physical test-bed for Japan’s future high-speed fleet (expected to debut commercially around 2030).” ” It is not part of any passenger or commercial schedule. It only runs trial test runs on select nights or early mornings, usually once or twice a week.”
I guess I was really lucky, because I saw it neither at night nor early in the morning. According to the photo time stamps, it took about four minutes for ALFA-X to stop and leave. When I took the photos I had no idea what I had in front of me, but some of the greatest moments in life are in hindsight, so I am glad I took those pictures – and I hope you’ll enjoy them, too, especially if you are a railfan / gunzel / densha otaku / trainspotter!

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