What trains are on your "list" to ride?

[TestudoToTetsudo]

So I've been a member on here for a couple months and have been really impressed by how much I've been able to learn so quickly, and how much better my next trip to Japan will be when it comes to riding and enjoying trains over there.

 

Given all the knowledge everyone on here has, I have to ask: what trains are on your "trains to ride" list for your next Japan trip?

 

This can also include railroad stations, landmarks, and lines (even if you haven't picked which train on that line to ride), a train consist type (even if you don't know on what line), as well as train services...

 

I know there are some pretty interesting lines, equipment types and train services out there, and I've seen several posters mention their "list." Can't wait to hear some of the interesting lists people have!

[westfalen]

500 series Shinkansen now that I can use a railpass to get on one.

[Kabutoni]

Hmmm... Let's see. Railway companies in bold I will be most likely to visit and ride.

 

- Tsugaru Tetsudou;

- Towada Kankou Tetsudou;

- Kounan Tetsudou;

- Arita Nairiku Tetsudou, all the 100km!;

- Toubu Asakusa - Aizu (Toubu, Yagan RR, Aizu RR) or in reverse;

- Jyoumo Dentetsu;

- Watarase Keikoku Tetsudou;

- Hitachinaka Kaihin Tetsudou;

- Mooka Tetsudou;

- Chichibu Tetsudou;

- Ryuutetsu;

- Narita Airport - Haneda Airport (Keisei - Asakusa-Line - Keihin Kyuukou), with the airport express, or at least take an express-subway;

- Enoden;

- Hakone-Touzan Tetsudou;

- Gakunan Tetsudou, a bit off the JR East track, but still worthwile IMO.

 

No JR Lines? No JR lines, as I will use them to travel from one private company to the other and there will be plenty of interesting rolling stock on them as well.

 

In that regard, I don't have any particular sites to visit. Maybe Nikko (which can be done on my way on the Asakusa -Aizu run) and Kamakura (which can be done at my Enoden run), but I don't have any other places in mind. Well, next to of course try local specialities :laughing7:

[Mudkip Orange]

I've never been to Japan, so my list might be a bit more "touristy" then seasoned travelers.

 

In descending order:

 

Keihan 3000 series

Eizan "Kirara" interurbans

All of the mount Hiei stuff (Sakamoto cable, etc)

Yamanote Line

Shonan Monorail

Haneda Monorail

Tsurumi line (I want ride all of the little spurs)

Hisatsu Line, with an extended stop at Okoba Station

Wide View Shinano or Wide View Hida

Chitetsu Kamidaki and Tateyama lines

[scott]

No idea if I'll ever be able to afford going to Japan at this point (or anywhere outside the US and Central America, the way airfares are going), but there are some specific trains and some lines I'd like to try for. But I'm still learning--there are probably lots more that I'd like, and I may have confused some things on this list.

 

Trains

Sunrise Express

Kitaguni

Hakucho/Super Hakucho

Tsugaru/Kamoshika/Inaho

Nihonkai/Akebono

Hokuetsu

 

 

Lines

Agatsuma Line

Iida Line

Tazawako Line

Ban'etsu West and East

Towada Kanko

Hachinohe/Sanriku

Oito Line (JR East and JR West)

(and yes, some of these are non-electrified, but I'm interested in the places they run through more than the equipment)

Hokuriku/Shinetsu Main Lines

San'in Main Line

Hakubi Line

 

 

...and lots more....

[CaptOblivious]

My wife and I have decided when we return to ride the Cassiopeia and the Banetsu Monogatari. Otherwise, I'm content to let the chips fall where they may...

[Kitayama]

I have convinced my wife that we some day shall take the Twilight Express Osaka - Sapporo.

 

All non-JR lines running outside the metropolitan areas are on my list - I agree with Toni Babelony on his list!

Tatami line winter time once more. Last time it was bus a long section due to a land slide.

 

I've done 40% of the network (counted including subways, tramways, monorail etc). I will try to increase that number. I'm leaving for Japan tomorrow. Four weeks in Japan, but not so much new lines. I will fly Haneda - Naha, so that will be two monorails, Tokyo and Yui. Will try to do some new lines in the Osaka area (as my parents-in-law live along Keihan), Hankai is on the list!

[TestudoToTetsudo]

Wow, amazing lists so far!

 

Here's mine, but I should mention it's subject to change since I've only been on here a few months and have a ways to go before my next trip.

 

Shinkansen

Basically, finish it all and return to my favorite part...

 

- Return to Tokaido Shinkansen - the busiest HSR line anywhere is a must-see every time I go!

- New Sakura Shinkansen (Shin-Osaka-Kagoshima; I've already ridden the Sanyo stretch)

- 800-series Shinkansen / Tsubame

- Tohoku/Akita Shinkansen (possibly as part of a Tokyo-Akita-Niigata-Tokyo day loop trip)

- Finish riding the Joetsu Shinkansen (I've been on parts of it)

- Nagano Shinkansen

 

Tokkyu / Limited Express

 

- Keisei Skyliner Narita High Speed Sky Access

- New Narita Express E259 EMUs

- Setouchi Marine View

- Kyushu Odan Express

- Yufuin No Mori

- Inaho

 

Local

 

- Return to Yamanote Line (it's such a cultural icon of Tokyo, a must-ride on every trip!)

- Chuo Line west of Shinjuku

- Musashino Line (it starts as a regular line, then becomes a loop-like line, I wonder what the ridership is like!)

- Tobu Tojo Line (as part of a loop trip)

- Seibu Railway (as part of loop trip)

- JR Hakicho/Kawagoe Lines (as part of loop trip)

- Enoden

- Either the Shonan or Haneda Monorails

- I also want to ride a local train line somewhere out in a rural area, on a train that starts and ends in small (ish) towns, and just serves small towns, because this whole concept of local commuter-style EMU trains running from village to village, serving no major city in the process, and still having enough ridership to be maintained by a for-profit rail operation, intrigues me.  Where I do this will depend on my other travel plans once I know them.

 

I also want to go back to Nippori and spend some time on the central Tokyo rail corridor, just to watch and take some pics/vids.  It's just such a high-intensity operation, it's amazing to see how they do it!

[westfalen]

Here's a shortlist for my August/September trip in rough geographical order, lines rather than trains, I'm more of a track basher than a train chaser, when I do seek out trains it's more the older ones than the new. All could be subject to change, I'll start planing in detail when I get back from Germany and the UK in May.

 

Yunokawa (The end of one of Hakodate's tram lines, the three stops from the tram depot to the end of the line is the last section of regular passenger carrying rail line I have to do on Hokkaido)

 

Tsugaru Tetsudo (to the end of the line, didn't get all the way last time.)

Konan Tetsudo (Owani Line)

JR Ou Line (Takanosu-Higashi Noshiro)

 

JR Kururi Line

Kominato Tetsudo

Isumi Tetsudo

JR Joetsu Line Minakami-Echigo Yuzawa (both directions)

 

JR Taketayo Line (after seeing video of it on a recent post)

Meitetsu Lines on Chita Peninsula (while I'm doing the Taketayo line I might as well knock them off as well)

 

Tosa Kuroshio Tetsudo (as much of it as I can fit in)

Iyotetsu (Takahama, Yokogawara and Gunchu Lines)

 

Matsura Tetsudo Sasebo-Imari

Shimbara Tetsudo

Whatever branchlines in northern Kyushu I can fit in.

[Fat Al]

I think my ultimate goal is to ride on the Hokutosei before JR cans it. But I've had bad luck, or budgetary constraints everytime I wanted to ride on it.

 

My girlfriend just agreed with me that we'll give it another go after we get married at the end of this year. Sort of brightens up my day a little bit.

[bikkuri bahn]

Pretty much anything that's due to give up the ghost over the next few years.  Some off the top of my head:

 

1. 113 series used on Boso peninsula lines (Chiba Prefecture)

2. kiha 181 on the Hamakaze service

3. any services using unmodified (i.e. not renewal "cylonized") 485 stock

4. any remaining "kyuko" services

5. 1000 (old) series on Keikyu- prob. gone from the main line within this year

6. (closer to home): 711 services on the Hakodate Main Line and Muroran line.  Kiha 183, especially bonnet cab units used on the Okhotsk ltd. express

[scott]

3. any services using unmodified (i.e. not renewal "cylonized") 485 stock

 

  Great--now I'll be picturing all the revised 485s with one red eye/light endlessly going side to side....

[Guest ___]

So I've been a member on here for a couple months and have been really impressed by how much I've been able to learn so

Given all the knowledge everyone on here has, I have to ask: what trains are on your "trains to ride" list for your next Japan trip?

 

All of them.

[bikkuri bahn]

3. any services using unmodified (i.e. not renewal "cylonized") 485 stock

 

  Great--now I'll be picturing all the revised 485s with one red eye/light endlessly going side to side....

 

Yes, I find this bright, friendly, purposefully handsome:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Rapid_Fairway.JPG

 

This one is ready to run you down, and you can't get away (but curiously bald also):

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ja/4/44/MG_5912.jpg

[scott]

And oddly pastel for a deadly cyborg....

[miyakoji]

You guys seem so Kanto-centric!  Although there are some Tohoku railways listed above.

 

In my case, lines:

• Wakasa Railway - I've been on JRW's Inbi Line a few times, but never switched to this one.  I'm afraid of missing the other Inbi Line train that day, heheh.
  
• Ibara Railway - been on the east end of it, and seen the west
  
• JRW Kisuki Line
  
• JRW Sanko Line
  
• JRW Wakayama Line
  
• A complete circuit around Shikoku, which requires a bus in the southeast, iirc, and I'd like to see Oboke and Koboke Stations, which are in the center of the island on the Dosan Line.  Apparently these names sound strange to the Japanese (they sound weird to me too), probably because of 'boke', and the meanings are odd: 大歩危, dangerous to stride or take big steps(!?) and 小歩危, dangerous to take little steps (equally !?, if anyone has a better idea of what those station names are supposed to mean, please let me know, although given the surrounding terrain, that might be accurate)
  
• Any line on Kyushu, Hokkaido, or in Tohoku.  Never been there.
  

 

As for rolling stock:

• 181 series DMUs, if they still exist by the time I get back.  I remember seeing these pull out of Okayama Station on Inaba services, the train control system seemed to open the throttle wide, then pull back, then back to full.  Hell of a racket, and quite a lot of smoke!
  
• 225 series EMU - I think it'll be sad to see the 223s taken off shin-kaisoku service (I assume this is what will happen), but the 225s ought to be good
  
• 257 series EMU - foolishly never rode these, particularly on the Boso peninsula, and even more foolishly did not buy the issue of Tetsudo Fan after the 500 subseries came out in mid '04.
  
• N700
  

[Martijn Meerts]

I don't really have any list of trains to ride when in Japan. However, I've been playing with the thought of traveling TO Japan by train at some point..

[scott]

I'd advise taking the more northern route, tovarich.

[alpineaustralia]

100 or 200-series Shinkansen

800-series Shinkansen / Tsubame

Super Hitachi

Cassiopea or Twilight Express or Sunrise Express

Kitaguni

Keisei Skyliner Narita High Speed Sky Access

[cteno4]

after watching david suchet's (pairot) documentary on the orient express i thought that would be wonderful to do, till i saw the prices, starting at only about $1000/day...

 

cheers

 

jeff

[westfalen]

While travelling around Europe in 2008 I rode the recently discontinued 'real' Orient Express from Vienna, Austria to Strasbourg, France. The Strasbourg to Paris leg had just been discontinued with the opening of the Strasbourg - Paris LGV and the Budapest - Vienna leg had gone years before leaving a nondescript overnight run between Vienna and Strasbourg that appeared in timetables only as trains 263/264 but still showed the train name on station departure boards and on the cars. My sleeping berth shown was a two person compartment (I don't even want to think of how cramped it would have been with two people) that I paid about AU$260 for on top of my Eurail Pass, still not great value for money but at least I can say I rode the authentic Orient Express.

[bikkuri bahn]

Westfalen, I too was able to ride the "real" Orient Express. I became aware of the TGV East Line being built, and realized it's going on line spelled the end of the Orient Express, as other HSR services have done to other overnight services (like in Japan). Anyway, it was back in the summer of 2006, when it still departed from Gare de l'Est in Paris.  I shared a six couchette compartment with three others.  The train itself was a sleeping car, two couchette cars, and a slew of SNCF corail coaches tacked on the end (which were detached at Strasbourg).  I had to walk up the platform almost to the end near the road overpass to get to my carriage.  No airconditioning, so windows down for a literal blast of a ride through the sparsely populated eastern French countryside.  Was rewarded with a late sunset view of the cathedral at Strasbourg through an open corridor window (one of the great pleasures of traveling in European side corridor stock).