JR East Kuomi Line worth a trip?

[Sacto1985]

I wonder is it worth it to go take a train ride on the JR East Kuomi Line between Kobuchizawa and Komoro. Yes, it takes about 2.5 hours for a one-way trip, but I've read this line has some of the best scenery in Japan and is also one of the highest-altitude lines in that country, too.

 

Here's part of a full-line video YouTube poster seishun18kinkippu did, going from Saku-Uminokuchi Station to Nakagomi Station:

 

[bikkuri bahn]

gmat probably has a better answer, but I think it's worth it, especially if you combine it with a larger trip, for example a loop trip on the Chuo Line outbound and return via Nagano shinkansen inbound. Try to ride the hybrid DMU, and get a spot in the front where you can see the cab- you will be able to see the monitor displaying the hybrid system in action.

[gmat]

If the ride is important, then the ride from Kobuchizawa to Koumi or maybe Yachiho has most of the scenery. On one side you skirt the mountain range topped by Mt. Yokodate. After Yachiho, it gets kind of flat as the valley widens on each side. From Kobuchizawa you go through mostly forest, then between fields by the time you get to Nobeyama. I saw a deer resting in a wooded fenced field right by the tracks just before the train broke into the open fields. Sorry, but it doesn't really feel like you're high in the mountains near Nobeyama, but further on, you wind along narrow river gorges part of the way and it's quite nice. I think that winter time would be much better, if you have heavy snow. I was never so lucky during the three years that I lived in Ueda and often visited Koumi JHS. After Koumi, there used to be the terraced moon shaped rice paddies, but I think that most of them have been enlarged and flattened. After that, until you get to Komoro, it's just rice paddies, fields and houses. If you look back, you might be able to see the tip of Mt. Fuji towards the head of the valley. I used to be able to see it from the southeastern edge of the platform at Komoro Station on a clear winter day. A number of the stations are still unmanned, I believe.

If you want to shoot trains, in the summer there are number of extra trains that start from Kobuchizawa and end at Nobeyama, I believe. They weren't listed in the usual schedule in the JR timetable book, so I was surprised when they showed up. Or at least not on the page that I was looking at. You can get off at one of the stations and shoot the next trains without waiting forever. I would recommend stopping at a station like Koumi for perhaps an hour and shoot trains coming and going. I'd do the same at Komoro as you can shoot the Nagano Railway trains, too.

 

This is from memory as the last few times, I rode the line, I was rushing to make it back to Tokyo the same night by the cheapest means. So I don't remember much of the trip.

 

Best wishes,

Grant