Photo/Illutration Staff of Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. show live footage of the inside of a streetcar that survived the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima shot through a smartphone on Feb. 16 in Hiroshima’s Naka Ward. (Jun Ueda)

Streetcar No. 651, survivor of Hiroshima's atomic bombing, rumbled through the city's streets on a recent morning, taking elementary school students on a virtual tour.

The streetcar was running within 700 meters of the blast center of the atomic bomb that U.S. forces dropped on the city on Aug. 6, 1945. Though badly damaged by the blast, it still carries passengers in Hiroshima today after being repaired.

Their annual school trip to Hiroshima canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 157 sixth-graders at Asukano Elementary School in Ikoma, Nara Prefecture, watched the tour unfold as it streamed live on video over the internet on Feb. 16.

Still, the students went all-out to get engaged as much as possible with the alternative tour, creating one-day tickets for the streetcar ride and trying out ticket gate scissors and crew’s uniforms borrowed from Hiroshima Electric Railway Co. in preparation.

The railway company, which operates the streetcar, offered the school the virtual ride as a substitute for the trip.

Over 50 minutes, a Hiroshima Electric Railway representative outlined the tram’s history, speaking before a smartphone set up inside it. During the ride, the students got glimpses of the Atomic Bomb Dome and other sights live through the tram's windows.

The changing scenery drew oohs and aahs from the kids watching it on laptops at their desks in five classrooms.

Comments on the tour from the kids at the Ikoma city-run school 300 kilometers from Hiroshima ranged from "great" to "magnificent."

Students at the educational facility usually travel to Hiroshima in September every year. Pupils went to the nearby Tokai region in October last year instead due to the pandemic.

The school's operator decided to participate in the online trip for the first time so that children could learn about peace as part of its career education program utilizing information and computing technology.

It was also the first time Hiroshima Electric Railway had organized such a session.

Prior to the pandemic, the company had every year allowed students from nearly 20 elementary and junior high schools in and outside Hiroshima Prefecture to see streetcars in person that survived the bombing, kept at its maintenance depot.

“The event was a good opportunity for us to consider how to promote ourselves from now on,” said a Hiroshima Electric Railway representative. “Online tours will let more people than the passenger limit have the experience simultaneously.”

(This article was written by Sonoko Miyazaki and Makoto Ito.)

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