Aru Ressha
The Aru Ressha is a luxury excursion train operated by Kyushu Railway Company in Japan since 2015. It comprises a two-car diesel-powered railcar heavily modified to parody the style, especially in its window treatment, of passenger cars supplied to Japan by the Brill Company">J. G. Brill Company">Brill Company of Philadelphia, United States of America in 1908.
Overview
Details of the train, named the "Sweet Train", were first announced in 2014;it entered service on 8 August 2015.
The name derives from the sweets served on board; meals are designed and created in a Japanese–French style by chef Yoshihiro Narisawa, owner of the eponymous restaurant in Tokyo.
Design
The train consists of two modified former KiHa 47 series diesel railcars. It invokes the style and ambience of the luxurious, 12-wheel Brill passenger cars purchased by the Kyushu Railway in 1908. The purchase occurred just before the railway company was nationalized under the Railway Nationalization Act and the cars were never put into service.The rebuilding project was overseen by industrial designer Eiji Mitooka, using scale models of the original coaches built by the railway modeller Nobutaro Hara. Car 1 and Car 2, formerly numbered KiHa 47 176 and 47 1505, were previously operated by JR Shikoku until withdrawn from service in 2011. Rebuilding work was carried out at JR Kyushu's Kokura General Rolling Stock Centre.