The Kurobe Gorge Railway will be at its best in the autumn foliage season. The contrast between the emerald green river and the red and yellow colored trees is beautiful, and if you take a ride on the trolley train running through the beautiful scenery and feel the wind, and take a bath in the hidden hot spring at the last stop, Keyakidaira, you will be in an extraordinary world.
Although cell phone companies have created areas around each station so that visitors can share the excitement of one of Japan’s most unexplored yet colorful and spectacular landscapes with their smartphones, it seems that shielded spaces such as tunnels are not so easy to access.
According to Satoru Tanimoto, Chief Manager of the Sales Planning and Public Relations Group, Sales Department, Kurobe Gorge Railway, the railroad was originally constructed to build a hydroelectric power generation facility and later opened for tourism. The diameter of the tunnel is small enough for a train to just barely pass through.
Generally, to enable communication in a tunnel, it is necessary to blow radio waves from the end of the tunnel into the tunnel, or to install communication equipment in the tunnel.
According to Kazuya Funamoto, Group Leader of the Execution Management 4G Group, Engineering Process Management Center, Mobile Process Division, Construction Business Group, KDDI Engineering, the winding nature of the tunnel means that even if antennas are installed at both ends, there will be places where radio waves cannot reach. Even if the signal reaches the inside when there is no train, when the train runs and fills the narrow tunnel space, the signal is blocked by the car body, and it is easy for the signal to not actually reach the passenger’s smartphone.
au (KDDI) took a serious look at these issues, and over a period of three years, they were able to achieve communication in all sections, including tunnels.
According to Naoki Shimada, Indoor Design Group, Indoor Center, Mobile Process Division, Construction Business Group, KDDI Engineering, in addition to installing antennas at both ends of the tunnel and blowing radio waves toward the center, they also crawled coaxial cables inside the tunnel to install antennas. Finally, the entire area was covered.
Since the entire area is designated as the Chubu Mountain National Park, it was also necessary to consider the landscape by painting the antennas brown, except for the antennae, which would lose performance if painted.
Shota Kingetsu, Group Leader of Area Planning G, Quality Control Department, Engineering Promotion Division, Engineering Headquarters, KDDI, said, “We installed new antennas in 50 locations so that all 41 tunnels could be connected. There is a lot of snow in winter, so we had to install them in places where the equipment would not be damaged,” he explains.
Since the railroad runs through a deep canyon, there are no side roads, so the equipment was transported within the regular schedule of the trolley train, and the installation work was carried out at night when the train was not in operation.
Incidentally, the route connecting the final stop, Zelkidaira, to the Kurobe Dam is only used by Kansai Electric Power Co. to manage and operate its hydroelectric power generation facilities and is not used for tourism purposes at this time, but will be opened to the public as the “Kurobe-Unazuki Canyon Route” from 2024.
Visitors can see various underground power supply facilities such as high-heat tunnels while riding on heavy equipment such as construction trolleys, incline lines, and shaft elevators, and it is expected to be a hot new tourist route that can be connected to the Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route, which is popular for its Kurobe Dam.
Regarding the possibility of making the canyon route an area, he said, “There are no plans at this time, but we have heard that it will be open to the public, and we will consider this while listening to customer feedback. The level of difficulty is expected to be even higher,” said Mr. Kingetsu.
In everyday life, we take it for granted that our smartphones are connected, but it seems that there are difficulties beyond imagination to area the sights in the wilderness. Let’s share photos of the spectacular scenery while thinking about the hard work of these engineers.
To get to Unazuki Station, the first station, get off at Kurobe Unazuki Onsen Station on the Hokuriku Shinkansen Line and take a 25-minute train ride from Shin-Kurobe Station on the adjacent Toyama Local Railway. By car, it is approximately 20 minutes from the Kurobe IC of the Hokuriku Expressway.
From October 11 to November 30, the “Autumn Pack,” which includes a round-trip ticket (3,960 yen) from Unazuki to Keyakidaira and a souvenir ticket worth 1,000 yen, is available for 3,000 yen. In addition, if you fulfill the conditions, you can get a “Toyama souvenir coupon” that can be used at participating stores in Toyama Prefecture.
© Source travel watch
Auto Amazon Links: No products found.
Auto Amazon Links: No products found.