>>1770924There have been local trains between Tokyo and Tohoku, but I know that's not exactly what you mean. Locomotive changes at Utsunomiya and Kuroiso for outbound trips, at Kuroiso only for inbound trips.
121レ Ueno 04:58~Koriyama 11:40, EF57/EF58/ED71
123レ Ueno 10:40~Ichinoseki 22:42, EF57/EF58/ED75
125レ Ueno 15:57~Fukushima 22:45, EF57/EF56/ED71
122レ Fukushima 6:50~Ueno 13;07, ED71/EF56
124レ Sendai 6:45~Ueno 15:46, ED71/EF57
126レ Sendai 12:58~Ueno 22:45, ED75/ED58
They were abolished in the Gosantoo diamond revision in March 1978, which standardized the Tohoku Main Line timetable as a response to passenger/freight traffic congestion, due to continued delays in Tohoku Shinkansen construction.
>>1770424The E1 and E4 MAX have long since been retired. In the 80s when Tokyo real estate prices were out of control (85 million yen/tsubo in Ginza 5-chome or ~$25,000/sf today) a lot of salarymen commuted all the way from Sendai or Niigata out of necessity, but after 30 years of economic stagnation Tokyo has become a lot cheaper. The trendy areas like Daikanyama, Naka-Meguro, Shimokita and Kichijoji are bloody expensive, but if you go to Nerima or any of the suburban sprawl in Chiba or Saitama (like Ichikawa or Urayasu) it's relatively affordable. Since the 90s, huge public housing developments have been built along the waterfront in Koto and Edogawa, as well as in Tama/Kawasaki. Considering the population boom in Koto, it's a shame that Tokyo Metro dragged its feet for so long on building the Yurakucho Line extension, to finally give the ward a north-south line. But I digress.
Anyway, JRE switched from a strategy of raw capacity to convenience through faster, more frequent trains. Thus introducing the faster E5 series in 2010 and finally upgrading the Utsunomiya~Morioka section to 300 km/h.
