For a huge train nerd like me, rail travel in Japan is a dream. I took a trip on a train that feels like it's from the future

Hamilton Spectator

a day ago

Right from the start, it's clear that something special is happening on Platform Five. Although the track is empty, the little guardrail is already lined three-deep with Japanese onlookers, their phones held aloft. Video mode: on and recording.
An announcement heralds the Spacia X limited express as it pulls into Tokyo's Asakusa station. It looks like it's not just arriving from the ancient town of Nikko but also the future. The silvery, super-streamlined train sweeps around the bend, and I see the engineer at the controls. He eyes the excited waves of the small crowd and returns just one stern nod, as if to say,
We're doing important work here: moving a whole nation, by track
.
This is just another day on the greatest rail system the world has ever seen. Every stat about Japanese trains seems like hyperbole. By one estimate, more than 22 billion people travel by train every year in this country. The nation is the birthplace of the fastest train on Earth. Still in development, the L0 Series Maglev (short for magnetic levitation — yes, it will 'float') has been clocked at more than 600 km/h in test runs.
The vast majority of the world's 20 busiest train stations are in Japan. The busiest, Tokyo's Shinjuku, sees about 3.5 million riders pass through each day. Why all the fuss about the
Spacia X
? It's quite new and very different from a typical Japanese train.
The whole design takes inspiration from destinations along the Tobu Railway track. The window frames are a nod to Edo-period kumiko crafts, for instance, while the exterior colouring resembles the gofun pigment used on shrines. Perhaps the coolest part: compartments like you've never seen on a train, including a cockpit suite inspired by a private jet, and a cockpit lounge with a bar. (More on that later.)
The cockpit suite aboard the Spacia X was inspired by a private jet.
For a lifelong train nerd like me, riding the rails in Japan is a dream. I've travelled on the Trans-Siberian across Russia, and on the Indian Pacific for the breadth of Australia. But there's no feeling like buying an unlimited Japan Rail Pass and settling into a seat in the Green Car, with my destination still unknown.
The
JR Pass
, sold only to overseas tourists, allows you to ride as much as you want for 7, 14 or 21 days, on the JR network, which operates all over the country. (Travelling on the Spacia X is a separate ticket.) My 'plan,' usually: Ride until I'm tired, then disembark at a town that, you know, looks nice. Then, do it all again the next day.
Japan's transportation decision-makers went all-in on trains after the Second World War. They rebuilt their nation by binding it together with ribbons of steel. All that accelerated with the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, when the country wowed the world with the first Shinkansen (bullet trains). More and more trains and tracks have been added in the decades since.
Trains operate all over Japan. The popular Tokaido Shinkansen, for example, makes it easy to zip between Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto.
But even if you're not a train nerd, rail travel is the best way to explore Japan, as tourists continue to visit in record numbers. Japanese trains are safe, efficient and almost always on time. And they'll whisk you away, right quick, from crowded cities to small towns and villages, big mountains and rugged shorelines in the countryside. Plus, riding the rails here is a cultural attraction in itself.
Today's trip on the Spacia X will carry me only a couple of hours north of Tokyo. But in many ways, the ride is a microcosm of all the charm and quirk and fun features that create Japan's magic on the rails.
Gliding away from Platform Five, the train slides along on an elevated track, slicing through the urban morass. Crammed little laneways roll by below, our viewpoint allowing peeks into people's tiny backyards.
There are thousands of stations in Japan, and each stop is announced with its own unique jingle, called an
eki melo
. Here on this train, the seven-second song sounds like a 19th-century waltz being interpreted by an old-school Nintendo system. (Johann Strauss meets Super Mario, if you will.)
Eventually, Tokyo falls away, and soon, dark mountains rise on the horizon. I make a visit to the cockpit lounge at one end of the train, right behind the engineer's controls. There's a gleaming bar with beer taps, huge hexagonal windows and cushy couches, plus the main attraction: a glass wall at the front. Those lucky enough to secure a seat in the lounge enjoy a constantly moving view of the oncoming track.
In the cockpit lounge, travellers can enjoy beers along with a constantly moving view of the oncoming track.
I snap a few photos, and vow that on my return trip, I'll secure a seat here. (I do.) After a chat with a friendly cabin attendant, who points out a few design elements, including geometric patterns that recall Japan's Edo period, I return to my seat.
Hot springs and 17th-century temples and a snazzy stay at the lakeside Ritz-Carlton await me in Nikko. But what I'm most excited about right now, as we slow into our destination station? Getting back on board this train, for the ride back to Tokyo.