Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. will put two commuter train cars up for sale on Sunday in Kanagawa Prefecture in celebration of their 100th anniversary.  But there’s a catch…

You have to be able to afford to ship and have pre-arranged storage for the 35-ton cars that are approximately 18 meters long, 2.8 meters wide and 3.5 meters high and shipping costs are estimated at Y5 million in in the Kanto region.  That’s a whopping $48 thousand USD for shipping alone.  The price of the train cars are negotiable - whew!  But I wonder how much it would cost if you wanted to take one home as a souvenir?  Are there import duties on trains?

The two 1000-series cars were built in 1976 and were decommissioned in March of this year.  The trains operated on the Keikyu line which runs between Narita International Airport and Yokohama and also services Haneda Airport (line map - PDF).  

I think a vintage train car could be retrofitted to make a cool condo and would be roomier than most in Tokyo but you would need to find a place to park it.  Or maybe this would be an upgrade for the food vendors operating out of Airstream trailers in Tokyo? 

While this is a cool opportunity to own your own train,  I’m not too sure that may people in the Tokyo area have room to park a train in their backyard.  I wonder who will be bidding?  Would you be interested in buying an old train car?  What would you do with it?

For more information check out the Japan Times article titled Keikyu to sell two old train cars to fete 110th anniversary.  You can contact the company directly by calling 03−5275−5912 (Japanese only) or visit the Keikyu Web (Babel Translation) for additional details on the sale..  

Photo Credit:  Personal Collection & Wikimedia, Keikyu-1000-1-1333