Train routes in Japan

Sapporo → Kushiro · 349 km · 4 h 5 min

JR Hokkaido · KiHa 283 · 261

Crosses Hokkaido’s wild interior, the Hidaka range and the Sekisho tunnels, to the crane marshes of Kushiro on the far Pacific coast.

Tokyo (Ikebukuro) → Chichibu · 77 km · 1 h 20 min

Seibu Railway · Seibu 001 series

Seibu’s radical Laview, with a huge curved windscreen and yellow living-room windows, climbs from Ikebukuro into the Chichibu mountains.

Okayama → Izumo · 221 km · 3 h

JR West · 273 series

JR West’s new 2024 tilting 273 series takes the Hakubi line’s passes to Izumo, home of Japan’s oldest grand shrine.

Okayama → Takamatsu · 72 km · 55 min

JR West & JR Shikoku · JR 5000 series + 223-5000 series EMU with double-deck panorama car

Every half hour it rides the lower deck of the 13.1 km Great Seto Bridge: the Seto Inland Sea’s only rail crossing, strung across five islands since 1988.

Osaka → Kyoto · 66 km · 1 h 20 min

Kintetsu Railway · Kintetsu 19200 series sightseeing limited express

A 2022 salon train styled on Nara’s Tenpyō court art, linking Osaka, the old capital Nara and Kyoto with a library bar and a sweets counter.

Nagoya → Nagano · 251 km · ≈ 3 h

JR Central · JR 383 tilting EMU

Tilting up the Kiso Valley: the old Nakasendō post road’s gorge and pass country on the classic mountain road to Nagano.

Okayama → Matsuyama · 214 km · ≈ 2 h 35 min

JR Shikoku · JR 8600 tilting EMU

Along the Seto Inland Sea’s island-studded shore to Dōgo Onsen, Japan’s oldest hot spring. Shikoku’s busiest express, tilting the whole way.

Sapporo → Asahikawa · 137 km · ≈ 1 h 25 min

JR Hokkaido · JR 789 EMU

Hokkaido’s busiest shuttle: near-hourly across the Ishikari plain to Asahikawa, the doorway to Biei’s hills and Daisetsuzan’s peaks.

Sapporo → Abashiri · 375 km · ≈ 5 h 25 min

JR Hokkaido · JR 283 DMU

One of Japan’s last great remote expresses: over the Kitami Pass through forest-empty interior to the drift-ice coast of the Sea of Okhotsk.

Sapporo → Wakkanai · 396 km · ≈ 5 h 10 min

JR Hokkaido · KiHa 261 DMU

One return working a day to Japan’s northernmost station: five hours up the Sōya Main Line to Wakkanai, in sight of Sakhalin on a clear day.

Tokyo → Sendai · 364 km · ≈ 4 h 40 min

JR East · Limited Express Hitachi

Tokyo to Sendai up the Pacific coast, inland of the Shinkansen: complete on 1 April 1905, and reopened right through Fukushima in March 2020 after nine years shut.

Kinosaki Onsen → Shin-Osaka · 187 km · ≈ 2 h 45 min

JR West · 287 & 289 series EMU

Named in 2011 for the storks bred back into the wild at Toyooka: a limited express from Shin-Osaka through the Tamba hills and down the San’in line to the hot-spring town of Kinosaki.

Fukui → Kuzuryūko · 55 km · 1 h 33 min

JR West · KiHa 120 railcar

The Kuzuryū Line, completed in 1972: one-car KiHa 120s climb from Fukui through the castle town of Ōno to a dam lake, the last stretch still worked with a single staff, one of two left on JR.

Shizuoka → Kofu · 121 km · 2 h 14 min

JR Central · 373 series

JR Central’s limited express from Shizuoka along the coast to Fuji, then up the Fuji River gorge past Minobu, the temple town of Mount Minobu, to Kofu; the Minobu Line was completed in 1928.

Tokyo → Choshi · 120 km · ≈ 1 h 50 min

JR East · E259 series · E257 series

JR East’s limited express from Tokyo by Chiba, Sakura and Yōkaichiba to Chōshi, the fishing port at the eastern tip of the Kantō plain, which the Sōbu line reached in 1897.

Ohara → Kazusa-Nakano · 27 km · 50 min

Isumi Railway · KiHa 52 · 28

Restored 1960s diesel railcars trundle past rice paddies and spring nanohana blossoms through the rural heart of the Boso Peninsula.

Osaka → Kashikojima · 177 km · 2 h 20 min

Kintetsu Railway · Kintetsu 50000 series

Kintetsu’s luxury Shimakaze (double-decker observation cars, leather saloons and a café) glides to the pearl bays and shrines of Ise-Shima.

Otsuki → Kawaguchiko · 27 km · 50 min

Fuji Kyuko · 8500 series

Steep little Fujikyu line to Lake Kawaguchi, its wide panorama windows framing Mt Fuji rising straight ahead.

Kagoshima → Ibusuki · 46 km · 55 min

JR Kyushu · KiHa 47

Split black-and-white treasure box train that puffs a cloud of mist from its doors, rounding Kinko Bay to the hot-sand baths of Ibusuki.

Kumamoto → Miyaji · 53 km · 1 h 30 min

JR Kyushu · KiHa 183-1000

Family sightseeing express with a panorama cab and play areas, zig-zagging the Tateno switchback into the vast Mt Aso caldera.

Kiryu → Manba · 44 km · 1 h 30 min

Watarase Keikoku Railway · WKT-500 · torokko

Open-sided torokko trolleys wind up the Watarase gorge on the old Ashio copper-mine line, ablaze with wisteria and autumn maple.

Sakari → Kuji · 163 km · 4 h 25 min

Sanriku Railway · Sanriku 36-700 series railcars

Japan’s longest third-sector railway follows 163 km of tsunami-rebuilt coast; the final gap closed in 2019, eight years after the 2011 wave.

Osaka → Shingu · 275 km · ≈ 4 h 25 min

JR West · JR 283 Ocean Arrow

Around the Kii Peninsula with the Pacific at the window: Shirahama’s sands, Honshu’s southernmost cape and the Kumano pilgrim coast.

Okayama → Kochi · 179 km · ≈ 2 h 30 min

JR Shikoku · JR 2700 tilting DMU

Across the Great Seto Bridge, then up the Yoshino river’s Oboke and Koboke gorges, tilting over the island spine to Kochi.

Hachinohe → Kuji · 65 km · 1 h 56 min

JR East · KiHa 110-700

A restaurant on rails (open kitchen car, chef’s courses at every seat) rolling the Sanriku surf from Hachinohe to Kuji along the Tanesashi coast.

Wakayama → Kishi · 14.3 km · 30 min

Wakayama Electric Railway · 2270 series

Eiji Mitooka’s white train painted with 101 cartoon Tamas trundles to Kishi, where calico stationmaster Tama famously saved the line; a cat shrine now guards the platform.

Joetsu-Myoko → Itoigawa · 60 km · 3 h

Echigo Tokimeki Railway · ET122-1000

Crimson-and-silver resort train with Japan’s largest train windows, serving regional courses on a slow sweep from Mt Myoko’s snow country to the Sea of Japan at Itoigawa.

Matsuyama → Iyo-Ozu · 55 km · 2 h

JR Shikoku · KiRo 185

A retro maroon-and-gold diner idling along the Iyonada shore: brunch above the waves and a pause at Shimonada, Japan’s most photographed seaside platform.

Niigata → Sakata · 167 km · 2 h 33 min

JR East · HB-E300

Kairi means “sea and village”: a hybrid diner serving Niigata and Shonai delicacies while threading the Sasagawa-nagare, 11 km of wave-gnawed rocks on the Uetsu coast.

Osaka (Namba) → Gokurakubashi · 64 km · 1 h 30 min

Nankai Electric Railway · Nankai 2000 series

Nankai’s deep-red 2026 flagship runs through from Namba’s neon to Gokurakubashi, grinding up 50‰ cedar slopes to the cable car for sacred Koyasan, with a lounge and bar aboard.

Miyazaki → Nango · 56 km · 1 h 49 min

JR Kyushu · KiHa 125-400

Obi-cedar railcars named for the sea-luck, mountain-luck myth skim the Nichinan palm coast past Aoshima’s Devil’s Washboard reefs to the fishing port of Nango.

Kumamoto → Misumi · 36.5 km · 1 h 8 min

JR Kyushu · KiHa 185

A jazz-soundtracked bar on rails (dark wood, stained glass, “A-Highball” in hand) swinging along the Ariake tidal flats from Kumamoto to the Amakusa ferry at Misumi.

Kobuchizawa → Komoro · 79 km · 2 h 14 min

JR East · KiHa 100 · 110

Grinds to 1,375 m at JR’s highest rail point below Yatsugatake: observatory seats by day, a stargazing dome and astronomer-guided night runs under the Milky Way.

Hiroshima → Fukuyama · 125 km · 3 h 21 min

JR West · KiRo 47-7000

etSETOra drifts the Kure Line’s island-studded Seto shore with Hiroshima patissiers’ sweets courses and a sake bar. Since 2025 it runs clear through to Fukuyama.

Joetsu-Myoko → Tokamachi · 122 km · 2 h 30 min

JR East · KiHa 40 · 48

A sake brewery on wheels (Niigata tasting bar, live jazz, a long pause on the sea cliff at Aoumigawa) winding via Nagaoka into snow-country Tokamachi.

Johana → Himi · 46 km · ~1 h 45 min

JR West · KiHa 40-2027

“Beautiful mountains and sea”: an emerald art-gallery railcar where a sushi chef works the counter as Amaharashi bay frames 3,000-metre Tateyama across the water.

Osaka (Abenobashi) → Yoshino · 65 km · 1 h 20 min

Kintetsu Railway · Kintetsu 16200 series

Navy-and-gold Blue Symphony glides from Osaka Abenobashi to holy Yoshino, the UNESCO cherry mountain, with a lounge bar, cake sets and armchairs in a reborn commuter train.

Kochi → Kubokawa · 72 km · 2 h 36 min

JR Shikoku · KiRo 185

Ryoma-themed “dawn of a new era” train pairs Tosa seafood with Pacific panoramas above Susaki and Tosa-Kure bays, locals waving it through tea fields to Kubokawa.

Kanazawa → Wakura Onsen · 71 km · 1 h 31 min

JR West · KiHa 48

A rolling Kaga bridal curtain: vermilion-and-black cars finished in Wajima-lacquer motifs and gold leaf, serving Ishikawa sweets en route to Wakura Onsen’s seaside baths.

Karuizawa → Nagano · 74 km · 2 h 8 min

Shinano Railway · 115 series

Rokumon wears the Sanada clan’s six-coin crest in deep crimson, serving kaiseki under Mt Asama on the old Shinetsu main line from Karuizawa down to Zenko-ji’s Nagano.

Tottori → Izumoshi · 154 km · 3 h 50 min

JR West · KiRo 47

Lapis-blue Ametsuchi (“heaven and earth”, from the Kojiki’s opening line) roams the San’in coast’s breakers past Mt Daisen and Lake Shinji from Tottori to Izumo.