Japan: I'm Now Deeply In Love With Trains

I live in the Canadian prairies. The space between major cities is enormous and takes a lot of time to travel by land. We haven't had passenger rail in my neck of the woods since the '80s. It still exists in parts of the country, but it's prohibitively expensive, and coverage is not impressive. That's kind of understandable. The country is huge and the population is relatively small. It would be difficult to support the cost and infrastructure of a reliable, nation-wide rail system. Couple that with typically expensive air travel (oh yeah, and our provincial bus system collapsed a few years back), and you're left with personal motor vehicles. We are very attached to cars here.

I knew the trains would be interesting to me as a visitor to Japan. I don't really have something to which I can compare it. Of course I'd heard about the legendary timing of Japanese trains - and saw it in action, as one line issued an apology for leaving 4 minutes late because of wildlife on the tracks. What I couldn't really envision before going there was how extensive the system really is - especially in Tokyo. The longest travel time I had within the city was around an hour, travelling from Asakusa to Odaiba to see the giant unicorn Gundam (worth it). The longest travel I had across the country was around 4.5 hours, spanning about 800 km! The shinkansen is a technological miracle!

People are generally pindrop silent on the trains (some exceptions), they run very frequently - to the point where I rarely checked the schedules and never rushed to get on board, the staff are friendly and helpful... Honestly, if I had to pick something to complain about, it would just be the crowding during peak hours, but since I was travelling on my own made up schedule, I had the luxury of timing my trips around that.

Efficiency aside, the trains also had a lot of charm. Each station had its quirks and most played a unique jingle for each stop. As I'd travel to less populated areas, the local trains were often colourful and part of the very image of each area. Some were just gorgeous.

There were also apparently a number of special touristy trains available for sightseeing at various prices. I didn't have time to explore this, but I'd love to next time.