Stay In A Train Station

[RS18U]

Very interesting article, with some facts I was not aware of:

• As of March 2020, 48.2 percent of 9,465 railway stations in Japan were completely unstaffed, marking an increase of about 10 percent over the past two decades, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
• Among the 4,368 stations operated by the six Japan Railways Group companies, nearly 60 percent have run without staff since August 2023, with the trend likely only to accelerate amid Japan's aging population and shrinking workforce.

 

Since we like visiting rural areas of Japan this could be an option for us at some point.

 

https://japantoday.com/category/national/feature-japan's-unstaffed-train-stations-getting-rural-revival-on-track

 

 

[Gunzel]

Thanks, I’ve stayed at Hirafu Station Guesthouse a couple of times, will have to see if we can get to Futamata-Honmachi on a future trip. 

[kuro68000]

This reminded me of a question I have. If you have a pass that is just a ticket, like the JR East ones for example, what do you do at unmanned stations that only have IC card stands?

 

I mean the ones without gates, where they just have a pedestal with an IC card touch pad on it, and no staff. I don't think they have anywhere to put the ticket in.

 

Presumably you just walk through.

[Gunzel]

Yes, you just walk through.