Along the way on our shinkonryoko (honeymoon) ramble, we rode all sorts of trains which are documented in various ways throughout this archive. While the trains get the glory, the stations and ticket counters are also interesting i feel. Just the day-to-day essential services provided without grandeur or acclaim. What follows are simply a few snaps of, and around, stations, ticket counters and the like.
While many people take very detailed and organize photos of trains and breakdowns, exact type of rolling stock, courses, route, history… i can’t remember as its all become a bit fuzzy, even where these rides they were (mostly starting in Okayama, onwards to Hyoko, Kyoto, Ishikawa, Toyama, maybe Niigata, possibly Nagano or Gifu), maybe I made notes somewhere.
Rolling on the Thunderbird
The Thunderbird was an incredible all around train. a Tokyu-service (limited express) was fast but rode at grade (rather than elevated) and featured plush seats and comfy atmosphere (we rocked “Green Car” upgrade too). Rolling at grade means better scenes passing by as well as limited swishing through the tunnels and/or being impeded by the screens to prevent noise going into the neighbourhoods (Thunderbird video)
Haneyume Noren (special scenic train with epic bento)
Haneyume Noren (basically means wedding curtain or something) is a scenic tourist course train, which didn’t go near far enough, but was lovely with a triple decker bento, wonderful lounges, seats facing out the window, a stamping station, and all kinds of other accoutrements to make this feel like time travelling
Bonus: train lunches & snacks get a round-up of their own but for kicks, here’s a snap of this magnificent lunch – as it goes, was hardly enough time to eat the lunch – well we only ate half of it between us total, the rest for a “hotel picnic” later – as well as check out the stamping stations and other interesting points on the train before throughout wrapped up {reminding myself i also recorded a load of audio clips from the journey to capture the “chooglin’ on” train vibes
End of the line, beginning of another
Next, Onwards we go! Toward Kurobe Gorge…
Blurb: On our meandering adventure of a honeymoon in May-June 2019, we travelled by many means of convenience including a wide variety of trains, rental cars, occasional coach buses and what not. See the whole Shinkonryoko Scrapbook for a mixed-media ephemera overview and a list of places visited for the curious.
If/when i recall, i’ll add more captions. I’m doing my best. If’n ya have an notion, check down at the bottom for even more dispatches about our honeymoon ramble around Japan with poems, gardens, friends, and yup, more trains and lunches.