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There’s apparently a running joke in Beunos Aires, Argentina, that if you’re planning on riding the subway’s B Line, you’d better bring a Japanese dictionary. No, Argentines don’t have a bizarre and nonsensical sense of humor; it turns out the country imported the B Line’s trains from Japan and didn’t even bother to change all the Japanese writing.

The B Line trains were sold to a Buenos Aires subway operator in 1994 after Tokyo Metro refitted the Marunouchi Line with new trains. The scrapped cars, despite a modern design and amenities, apparently received a mixed reception to their new home in Argentina.

Traditionally, train cars in Buenos Aires had been fitted with four-person box-style seats, so the Japanese setup of two rows of seven-passenger seats facing each other was jarring, since Argentine commuters suddenly found themselves sharing a more intimate riding experience with strangers next to and across from them.

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At first, the train’s interiors were also plastered in Japanese writing, including the helpful map above the door that lists stops; not so helpful, it turns out, when written in an indecipherable language.

Recently, most of the Japanese writing has been replaced on the B Line, but the crew room of each train, at least, still proudly proclaims the car’s Japanese heritage.

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Source and title photo: Sekai no Arukikata
Inset image via Wikipedia