Ou line 奥羽本線 Iizume - Gosannen

Ou 奥羽本線 between Mineyoshikawa and Kariwano

Ou line from North to South
junction cities are
Aomori, Odate, Akita, Omagari
Yokote, Shinjo, Yamagata,
Yonezawa, Fukushima

The Ou line extends the length of Northern Tohoku. It goes from Aomori in the North, through Odate to Akita City, from Akita City to Shinjo, Yamagata via Omagari, Yokote and Yuzawa. From Shinjo it follows the Shinkansen line south through Yamagata City, Yonezawa, terminating at Fukushima City.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cu_Main_Line 

Snow in Odate

It snowed while in Odate.
It snowed a lot...
On the last day it stopped snowing enough to take a shovel to the snow pile.
Cherry blossoms are out in Fukuoka;  Tohoko and Hokkaido... snow, snow, snow.
This is a video of snow in the backyard.  Apparently it has melted a lot - it had been almost to the roof.  The wood against the side of the house is to keep the snow out...
The pictures below the video are of Hiro's niece's school on graduation day.   They had made a good effort to have the carpark clear, but there is to the number of places you can put the snow.  At this time of the year the snow tends to be quite dirty... months of shovelling take their toll.

On the way up - seishun 18

Early morning in Akabane

I wasn't the only  one thinking it was early... fortunately I was
going against the traffic.

Tochigi somewhere

Kooriyama in Fukushima

The Shinkansen line in the background. Somewhere near Sendai

The trains get crowded around the major centres

                                       

The train to Nyuko onsen

Nyoko onsen - pretty, a lot of snow, but has seen better days.

like this

glad I'm not doing the shovelling there..

or there

Rikuu Tou sen scenery

Rikuu Tou line scenery.

Not much grave visiting can be done there...
the graves are barely sticking out of the snow.

Rikuu sai line between Shinjo and Sakata

Uetsu line from Sakata... not very many passengers.

 I was fortunate to get a seat on the line to Odate, but the two car train is pretty well empty by the time it gets to Odate, the terminal station.