[1 of 4] Cycling Japan's Abandoned Rail: 北海道廃線巡り (The Haboro Line・羽幌線)

[LANman247]

Hey Adam and Beth! I just discovered that you guys were doing this from Beth's recent post on Facebook. Loving the videos and keep up the great work! I hope that all is well with you two in Japan ^^

[LikeableRodent]

@LANman247

Oh hello! I hope you're doing ok!

We're doing well. It was a bit snowy today though :p

[MrAKuDi]

This was a great watch!

[LikeableRodent]

@MrAKuDi

Thanks for watching it!

[IIoWoII]

Hmm... the Okinawan tunnels were pretty cycle-able. Been there yet?

[LikeableRodent]

@IIoWoII

We actually plan on going to Okinawa for the first time this Golden Week, though we're not going to bring our bikes.

[Kaminix]

All I could think about during the introduction was an army pluton walking out of that tunnel. (Kurosawa's "Dreams", not the same tunnel but they all look the same)

[LikeableRodent]

@Kaminix

Never seen it, but I'll keep it in mind the next time I head to the DVD rental store...

[MayonakaMaiku]

I wish the Japanese subtitles were in hiragana :D

[LikeableRodent]

@MayonakaMaiku

Once you get comfortable enough with kanji there comes a time when you realize how extraordinarily helpful it is in being able to read quickly. Reading in pure kana makes me want to pull my hair out in frustration. Just hold in there, keep studying, and one day it'll suddenly dawn on you how much nicer it is to have kanji versus just kana.

With that said, thanks for watching :)

[AbandonedJapan]

Wow! This was really interesting! Great video, editing, music and people! Such an adventure! ~Kurt :-)

[Amiduffer]

This was an amazing trip. There's a lot of abandoned lines I'd like to explore in Maine and the San Francisco area just like this.

[LikeableRodent]

@Amiduffer

Hope you enjoy your trip!

[Amiduffer]

@LikeableRodent Industrial archaeology is always fun and interesting. By the way, what you're doing for lack of a better term, is Ferroequinarchaeology and you're a Ferroequinarchaeologist. You can put those on your business cards, it looks impressive.

[LikeableRodent]

@Amiduffer

Well then, thanks for increasing my vocabulary!

[hippykiller1]

Great adventure man! 

[LikeableRodent]

@hippykiller1

Cool! Thanks for watching!

[perdomot]

Awesome video dude. Really cool to see different parts of Japan. Keep it up!

[tbone1143]

I totally enjoyed the ride. My legs are very sore and tired for I am out of shape, but I can't wait for the next ride......... Doug....=)

[LikeableRodent]

@tbone1143

Ha! Glad you came along for the ride!

And the next one is already up at the link at the top of this video's description.

[katakanadian]

Just got around to finishing watching the video. I really like this kind of travelogue b/c it can help one decide what to do. e.g. I wouldn't bother trying to search out old train lines but it would be neat to know if there are any special spots directly on my route.

I'm curious. About how much raw video did you take to make this 20' vid? I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

[katakanadian]

I've done a fair bit of riding in Japan. I very rarely walked through any tunnels though. Just get well lilt up and take the lane.

[LikeableRodent]

@katakanadian

Looking at my odometer, I've ridden about 20,000 km over a few years of cycling in Japan, and my decision to ride/walk tunnels comes down to a judgment call on a per-tunnel basis depending on traffic flow and the length of a tunnel.

Even fully taking the lane, I've still had plenty of frightening experiences with people who still pass me in under completely unsafe conditions. At 5:00 Beth complains about the, "people who drive like idiots."(cont in new comment)

[LikeableRodent]

@katakanadian

(cont. from previous)

Beth made that complaint after a particularly bad tunnel that we had just taken the lane in and over the ~2km of the tunnel been unsafely passed by multiple people (passing in the wrong lane on a curve only to find an oncoming car in the same lane then swerving back in our lane right in front of us). Drivers like that are the minority, but by no means are they rare.

For this video, I had about five hours of footage.

And thanks for watching!

[spencster119]

This is a pretty neat video. I am a foreigner living in Tomamae and I find the abandoned rails of Hokkaido very interesting as well. Went was this filmed? I live on just the other side of the park you filmed in.

[LikeableRodent]

@spencster119

Oh wow, that's really cool!

From looking at the timestamps on my source video, it seems that I was in Tomamae on July 27th, earlier this year.

If you want to do some rail exploration of your own and are comfortable with Japanese, I'd highly recommend "鉄道廃線跡を歩く". It's pretty much the abandoned rail bible, and it was invaluable in finding many of the old sites.

[HWGuyEG]

You should make some touristy timeslot fillers for NHK World, they've been in need of some decent stuff to run when the main programs aren't on.

An improved version of something like this would probably make the cut.

[LikeableRodent]

@HWGuyEG

Thanks for watching!

You're actually the second person who told me I should see about getting it on NHK. I'll think about it. I'm not sure if the CC NonCommercial-licensed would be OK to use on broadcast TV, even if it's NHK.

As an aside, what improvements would you suggest? I'm working on the next episodes and wouldn't mind some constructive feedback.

[HWGuyEG]

@LikeableRodent

Well NHK World is free-to-air so licensing is different than the national channels, I think they've put up CC stuff before, however you'd probably have to drop NC, CC-BY-SA, maybe ND, should work. Since you're the creator you can have multiple licensees.

When you're going around I would try not to have stops with nothing, I'd just have a quick shot if there's pretty much nothing to see, unless there's some interesting history at the stop.

Some lines have everything remaining.

[LikeableRodent]

@HWGuyEG

From my understanding from reading the CC legal codes, you can't 'reduce' licenses. For example, for any work used under the BY-NC-SA license you can only release it under later revisions/regional versions of the same license. You can't use a BY-NC-SA work then release your work with just a BY-SA license.

However the question still remains of if NHK would be able to be considered NC usage. I'll look into this further when I finish all four episodes.

[HWGuyEG]

@LikeableRodent

Hmm, in that case there's many other licenses which do allow you to release content under multiple licenses, as long as they're compatible... I'm only familiar with software licenses, LGPL, MIT, ZLIB... some work with art.

[LikeableRodent]

@HWGuyEG

(hit character limit, previous comment cont.)

I definitely see what you mean about stopping at stops that have nothing. Unfortunately practically all that's left of the Haboro Line is in this video--there's barely anything left at all.

The other three lines I followed had more (and more interesting) remains, so hopefully there shouldn't be as much of that problem in the videos to come.

[lShishkaBerryl]

wow what an awesome experience!

[LikeableRodent]

@lShishkaBerryl

It really was quite fun. Despite Beth looking bored many times in this video, she was actually enjoying herself too.

[nolovenomusic]

Thank you for using my song. I enjoyed this video;)

[LikeableRodent]

@nolovenomusic

Oh, thank YOU for making enjoyable music. I'm planning on using Train (remix) in my next video, and I'm thinking about using 願い事 in a later video.

I hope you don't mind :)

[endotoxin]

Absolutely fascinating video. The scenery is beautiful, the editing is well-timed, the narration is lovely. I am VERY MUCH looking forward to the next episode!

[LikeableRodent]

@endotoxin

Thank you. I'm hard at work on episode two.

[jaggedapple]

This looks like one of the greatest things ever. Japan and trains, two of my favorite things... you're so lucky!

[LikeableRodent]

@jaggedapple

Japanese countryside + trains + bicycles + taking a month of vacation = pretty good times

[MrJorisma]

Muchas gracias por confiar en mi música para tu elogioso proyecto. Desde Argentina , saludos cordiales!!

[LikeableRodent]

@MrJorisma

Hello!

I'm glad you enjoyed the video. Thank you for putting excellent music up for free under the CC license. I really appreciate you letting people use your music.

[shammers2k]

Fantastic.

[LikeableRodent]

@shammers2k

Thank you, Mr. Shammers :)

[TheStagtimes]

I'm looking forward to the next episode :)

[LikeableRodent]

@TheStagtimes

Thanks. I'm workin' on it when I can.

[roadragebunny]

LOVE THIS! gawd it really makes me miss Japan!

[LikeableRodent]

@roadragebunny

Thank you!

I just checked out your flickr stream, and you have some nice photos up.