Spending a Nishitetsu night with Hideo Ide
Tamping the Tenjin Ōmuta Line
Key facts:
- Owner: Nishi-Nippon Railroad Company
- Founded in December 1908
- Main line: Nishitetsu Tenjin Ōmuta Line
- Total length: 75 km
- Maximum speed: 110 km/h
- Distance tamped per shift: 600 m
- Machine: 08-1XS (2019)
- Last train Inuzuka Station: 00:20
- First train Inuzuka Station: 05:20
Working at night between the westernmost and southernmost railway station owned by a Japanese private railway company.
When the sun sets in the Land of the Rising Sun, Hideo Ide sets to work. The 41-year-old tamping machine operator has over 20 years of experience. His job is to maintain the Tenjin Ōmuta Line on behalf of the Nishi-Nippon Railroad Company, also known as Nishitetsu. Trains to Ōmuta depart from the terminus at Fukuoka-Tenjin at intervals of nearly three minutes as well as one and a half minutes.
This local company with a long-standing tradition allowed the RAILCLUB team to accompany Hideo on the job for one day and one night. It was an opportunity we did not want to miss. We met Hideo in the afternoon at Inuzuka Station. Following a polite introduction, he confessed with a smile that he tackles his nightly tasks with a great deal of fear. That wasn’t how we expected him to begin describing what he does.