I cant think of many countries in the world where there is more than one overhead voltage system used to supply the power to the locomotives of the national railway system. Our neighbour France comes to mind (1500VDC and 25000VAC) and of course until a few years ago here in the United Kingdom there was the Manchester--Sheffield "Woodhead line" energised at 1500VDC, alas now lifted but earmarked for a possible reopening!Japan uses two voltage systems on the former Japanese National Railways network, the border between the two voltages (20000VAC and 1500VDC) goes East to West along the Fuji River.
The voltage in the North of Japan and also on all
the off shore islands is 20000VAC depicted here by the top photograph of a type ED76 in "AC red"
livery on a sleeper "blue train". The voltage in the south of the island is 1500VDC depicted here by a type
EF65-1000 in DC passenger blue colour scheme.
To complicate these colours further we have a few types of dual voltage locomotives for example the type EF81 and these are painted in AC red livery!
These liveries are only applied to locomotives that were constructed in the pre-private era, more modern locomotives constructed only for the JR freight company yet again have different colour schemes for each type!
With so few ready to run models of Japanese electric locomotives available the problem arrises on what voltage to use on Futatsu no Kawa . Looking at my collection of electric locomotives and electric multiple units I can clearly see that I only posses only two 20000VAC model locomotives, both by Tomix an ED76 in AC red and a very attractice ED75 in a special experimental Freight colour scheme introduced by JR freight when it was in its fledge ling years. On the other hand I have eight DC locomotives, perhaps this is the innfluence that the main industrial and dense population areas in Japan are in the DC area.
Perhaps some modellers license should be used and Futatsu no Kawa will operate both AC and DC locomotives!
