wow, as a train travel nerd, it saddens me to imagine the closure of so many lines I remember my trip along the sanriku coast, rode the train from Miyako to Morioka in the fall and the views were astonishing and beautiful...
It feels like Japan is at the same point as Britain was in the 1960s before the Beeching Cuts that closed hundreds of unprofitable lines. The irony is that we could do with many of those lines reopening but most of them have been ripped up and turned into walking and cycle paths. Another informative video, Takeshi san. Arigato!
The view along the Yamada Line is beautiful. With regards to the Yamada Line, the upgrades to route 106 along with its transformation to the Miyako-Morioka Connector it will be interesting how faster bus service over this new road will decrease demand on the Yamada Line. When I was there in 2019 I could see a lot of the work being done on route 106. The locals are very existed for the road upgrades and the promise of faster access to Morioka via Bus when the Miyako-Morioka Connector. I spoke with some locals and connectivity advocates by chance who looked toward a future where East Iwate was better connected. It will be interesting to see what happens in Miyako and the entire area around it as the travel time gets reduced from the current ~2 hours.
I am surprised to see the Kururi Line in Chiba so high on the list. I have been at every station on this line, it took me all day, and I was never bored. The scenery and ambience are very special. I think the local government should do more to promote this region as a tourist spot for people who live in Tokyo.
The Tadami Line seems to be all over the place when it comes to passenger numbers. But hopefully when the closed section is restored, the passenger numbers on the whole line will be enough to keep it open. It is a beautiful route, even though the most experience I've had with the Tadami Line was driving it on Train Simulator. But even in a simulator, it is still a beautiful route compared to the real route, and would be a shame if the whole route shuts down.
Wow this is so detailed! Japan's demographics do make a lot of closures inevitable as well as more takeover of track and to some extent operations by local governments. But that shouldn't distract from the reality of bad policy on rural rail lines that goes back to the JNR era and continues with JR East with its focus on Shinkansen and Tokyo-area operations. There are a lot of places where Central European practices would do a lot of good S-bahn, tram-trains etc would work well in Yamagata city, Morioka and Akita. Heck station reform would be a good idea. Too many stations in some places (Tadami line) and too few in others (Tohoku mainline north of Utsunomiya station, Akita city etc). Government needs to be more proactive to stop viable lines entering frequency death spirals.
With the reduced shuttle buss offerings since the Holiday Inn Resort take over of Appi, winter trip traffic is going to increase on the Hanawa Line and although this is only seasonal traffic every bit helps.
I took the Resort Shirakami in 2019 and it was a great experience, the views along the Gono line are among the best in Japan. One of these years I want to visit some of the hotels along the line and really take in the view along with the surrounding area.
This was very interesting. Very sad to think of closures. I was looking into it more and found some interesting things. The Ōminato Line is isolated from JR and has to go over the Aomori Railway to reach JR. I got very interested in this and found the Ōminato Line, Hachinohe Line (only connection to Shinkansen), Nanao Line, Himi Line and Johana Line are some examples of JR railway lines that do not connect to JR track. Also the Oito Line perhaps as well. This was pretty interesting to me, maybe it might be a cool video sometime to look at these JR lines that connect to railway lines that are privatized now.
@@lewisho8114 Hachinohe Line starts at Hachinohe and goes east/south away from Shin-Aomori. To reach Shin-Aomori (North from Hachinohe) would mean travelling over the Aomori Railway private system. Also going south from Hachinohe or Kuji would mean travelling over the private railways. This means the only JR connection at Hachinohe is with the Shinkansen. A through train from the Hachinohe Line would have to leave JR East and go on private lines to reach other destinations.
Being able to take the shinkansen to Amarume would be a boom for the region Tsuruoka & Sakata already feels isolated even with the great express service from Niigata a further connection from there to Akita would really improve things. When I last visited Tsuruoka my next stop was in Hakodate and the fastest way to get there was: 05:47 Dpt. Tsuruoka Sta. (鶴岡駅): LTD. EXP INAHO 2 1h 44min 07:31 Arr. Niigata Sta. (新潟駅): [5] 07:49 Dpt. Niigata Sta. (新潟駅): [11] SHINKANSEN MAX TOKI 308 1h 47min 09:38 Arr. Omiya Sta. (大宮駅): 22min to grab food 10:00 Dpt. Omiya Sta. (大宮駅): SHINKANSEN HAYABUSA 11 3h 34min 13:34 Arr. SHIN-HAKODATE-HOKUTO: [12] 13:47 Dpt. SHIN-HAKODATE-HOKUTO: HAKODATE LINER for HAKODATE 15min 14:02 Arr. Hakodate Sta. (函館駅): Now how different do you think that would look if Tsuruoka was connected to Akita via shinkansen?
If I'm as successful as I aim to be, I want to begin investing in the old rural towns that are being abandoned, and repopulate them. I hope the younger generations can begin to appreciate the quiet life and save rural Japan.
Good, informative and complicative video! Thank you, mr. Takeshi san! I think, there are only lines with less than 200 transportation density are in danger. Most of rural and commuter lines of JR East are very important and crucial for local citizens, despite low transportation density, especially in weekdays, during rush hours. Because, not everyone have a car, also, there are lack of sufficient drivers for buses, if we will convert them into bus or BRT. Train consist of minimum 2 cars equip more people than 1 bus, also energy consumption is less. If we will close all the lines with density less than 2000, which rail lines will remain? Of course, only main lines, such as Tohoku line to Aomori, Joban line to Sendai and Shinkansen lines including mini-Shinkansen. Many rural areas will lose main transport to large cities, two coasts-Pacific and Japan Sea. I watched a lot of videos of "nagomi view"(maybe you know) and this channel shows a lot of cabviews from different railways, and also from the deficit routes of JR East. I liked them, cause these routes brings some atmosphere of rural life and there are a lot of beautiful scenic views along the routes. For example, Iiyama line, Ofunato line, Ishinomaki line, Rikuu lines are good examples of them. Mr. Takeshi san, maybe you know, which are transportation densities of Sanriku railway(non JR) and Aterazawa lines? These lines are quite popular among tourists and local citizens. Especially, Sanriku railway for its scenic views. Aterazawa line also carry a lot of students to schools during rush hours. I would like to know some statistics of ridership, transportation density and overall situation of these two routes. This is really interesting!
I've only read up on these routes on Wikipedia, but I didn't realize that JR East is literally burning money keeping some of them in operation, especially if JNR deemed anything with a density of less than 4,000 to be up for the specified local lines. I really want to see some rural rail in Japan so hopefully I make it there before it becomes too much of a problem.
Very informative. Also very sad to see how vulnerable the Tohoku region is when it comes to future cuts. I think it would be seen very badly from a political point of view of JREast cuts these routes since it has so many profirable lines in Kanto and is even investing in them even more. It would be a shame if these lines were cut as many of them are very scenic even though most of them run in areas where the weather conditions are so rough and density is so low it reminds a lot of the situation in hokkaido. Could you tell us more about the yamagata shinkansen extension plan you just mentioned? Are they discussing extending the mini shinkansen line to Sakata?
It would be a shame to lose so many of these lines. I've been on quite a few and had wonderful experiences on a heap of these lines in Akita, Aomori, Iwate and Yamagata Prefectures. I have so many more in the southern parts of Tohoku and around Niigata, Nagano and Gunma left to explore, and I hope I'll get the opportunity once the world re-opens.
I find it quite bewildering how by looking at just passenger numbers and direct revenue, the operational make-or-break decisions are made for rail lines. Not just in Japan but in most Western countries as well. On the one hand, governments are complaining about the drain on rural areas because people move to the metropolitan areas. On the other hand, by taking away the infrastructure to these areas, even more people will want to move away because you don't want to be stuck in the countryside without means of transportation. Trains historically brought prosperity to the areas where new lines opened. So why not focus on making the countryside more attractive, with a modern and well-connected train network as a backbone, instead of just thinking of money in the pocket today, cannibalising existing infrastructure and thereby killing off the rural areas even faster? I don't get it..
I too feel like the lack of service, slow speeds, and poor coordination of connections (between their own trains, where the rail operator has full control, connections to other train operators, and train-bus, which requires working with the bus operators, too), is part of the problem. I've been looking at the JR West area lately (trying to optimize routes to cover all the deficit lines in Chugoku that @JPRail talked about in his JR West video on my next visit to Japan), but there's probably similar issues on JR East, and in the other regions, too. For example, let's say we live and work in Miyoshi City (in Hiroshima Prefecture), and want to go to Mount Dogo for the weekend to ski. We want to maximize our time on the slopes, so we leave straight from work on Friday. There's a 17:30 train to Bingo-Ochiai, which seems promising. It gets in at 18:46, for an average speed of 36 km/h, including stops. Kinda slow for a nominally 85 km/h line with about 3.5 km average stop spacing, but it is a mountainous area, so it's difficult to avoid tight curves. The connecting train to Dogoyama isn't until 20:12, though, so we're waiting 10 minutes longer than we've spent on the train so far. We finally get to Dogoyama Station at 20:26, and whoops, the last bus to the resort left at 17:54. That didn't work, so, let's leave first thing Saturday morning instead. The first train from Miyoshi to Bingo-Ochiai is at 6:55, arriving at 8:16. Way too late for the only morning train to Dogoyama, which left at 6:41. The next train to Dogoyama isn't until 14:38, so we may as well have taken the 13:01 from Miyoshi, arriving at Bingo-Ochiai at 14:21, and Dogoyama at 14:52. Then we get the 15:11 bus, arriving at the resort at 15:44, and most of the day's gone. And we're totally screwed going home on Sunday, with the only bus back to Dogoyama Station leaving at 6:59, and no train until 14:11. At least, these are the schedules in the summer. Maybe the situation's actually better during the ski season? Or we could just drive, and be there in about an hour. 75 minutes if we want to be cheap, and don't take the expressway.
wow, as a train travel nerd, it saddens me to imagine the closure of so many lines
I remember my trip along the sanriku coast, rode the train from Miyako to Morioka in the fall and the views were astonishing and beautiful...
It feels like Japan is at the same point as Britain was in the 1960s before the Beeching Cuts that closed hundreds of unprofitable lines. The irony is that we could do with many of those lines reopening but most of them have been ripped up and turned into walking and cycle paths. Another informative video, Takeshi san. Arigato!
The view along the Yamada Line is beautiful.
With regards to the Yamada Line, the upgrades to route 106 along with its transformation to the Miyako-Morioka Connector it will be interesting how faster bus service over this new road will decrease demand on the Yamada Line. When I was there in 2019 I could see a lot of the work being done on route 106. The locals are very existed for the road upgrades and the promise of faster access to Morioka via Bus when the Miyako-Morioka Connector. I spoke with some locals and connectivity advocates by chance who looked toward a future where East Iwate was better connected. It will be interesting to see what happens in Miyako and the entire area around it as the travel time gets reduced from the current ~2 hours.
日本人でもコアな話題なのに、日本の鉄道にここまで外国人の方が興味を持っていて嬉しいです。
Would love to see the reverse, which lines have the highest density and lowest operating ratio. The 5 digit numbers are incredible...
They would all be in Tokyo lol
Yamanote line has about a 95 ratio, only line to really profit during Covid 19
I am surprised to see the Kururi Line in Chiba so high on the list. I have been at every station on this line, it took me all day, and I was never bored. The scenery and ambience are very special. I think the local government should do more to promote this region as a tourist spot for people who live in Tokyo.
The Tadami Line seems to be all over the place when it comes to passenger numbers. But hopefully when the closed section is restored, the passenger numbers on the whole line will be enough to keep it open. It is a beautiful route, even though the most experience I've had with the Tadami Line was driving it on Train Simulator. But even in a simulator, it is still a beautiful route compared to the real route, and would be a shame if the whole route shuts down.
Took the full length of the Kitakami Line in the winter going to Yokote and it was beautiful.
An excellent, easy-to-understand video for us train people as always. Thanks for your work!
Wow this is so detailed! Japan's demographics do make a lot of closures inevitable as well as more takeover of track and to some extent operations by local governments. But that shouldn't distract from the reality of bad policy on rural rail lines that goes back to the JNR era and continues with JR East with its focus on Shinkansen and Tokyo-area operations. There are a lot of places where Central European practices would do a lot of good S-bahn, tram-trains etc would work well in Yamagata city, Morioka and Akita. Heck station reform would be a good idea. Too many stations in some places (Tadami line) and too few in others (Tohoku mainline north of Utsunomiya station, Akita city etc). Government needs to be more proactive to stop viable lines entering frequency death spirals.
With the reduced shuttle buss offerings since the Holiday Inn Resort take over of Appi, winter trip traffic is going to increase on the Hanawa Line and although this is only seasonal traffic every bit helps.
I took the Resort Shirakami in 2019 and it was a great experience, the views along the Gono line are among the best in Japan. One of these years I want to visit some of the hotels along the line and really take in the view along with the surrounding area.
This was very interesting. Very sad to think of closures. I was looking into it more and found some interesting things. The Ōminato Line is isolated from JR and has to go over the Aomori Railway to reach JR. I got very interested in this and found the Ōminato Line, Hachinohe Line (only connection to Shinkansen), Nanao Line, Himi Line and Johana Line are some examples of JR railway lines that do not connect to JR track. Also the Oito Line perhaps as well. This was pretty interesting to me, maybe it might be a cool video sometime to look at these JR lines that connect to railway lines that are privatized now.
Wrong, the Hachinohe line is connected to the main lines at Shin-Aomori.
@@lewisho8114 Hachinohe Line starts at Hachinohe and goes east/south away from Shin-Aomori. To reach Shin-Aomori (North from Hachinohe) would mean travelling over the Aomori Railway private system. Also going south from Hachinohe or Kuji would mean travelling over the private railways. This means the only JR connection at Hachinohe is with the Shinkansen. A through train from the Hachinohe Line would have to leave JR East and go on private lines to reach other destinations.
Being able to take the shinkansen to Amarume would be a boom for the region Tsuruoka & Sakata already feels isolated even with the great express service from Niigata a further connection from there to Akita would really improve things. When I last visited Tsuruoka my next stop was in Hakodate and the fastest way to get there was:
05:47 Dpt. Tsuruoka Sta. (鶴岡駅):
LTD. EXP INAHO 2
1h 44min
07:31 Arr. Niigata Sta. (新潟駅): [5]
07:49 Dpt. Niigata Sta. (新潟駅): [11]
SHINKANSEN MAX TOKI 308
1h 47min
09:38 Arr. Omiya Sta. (大宮駅):
22min to grab food
10:00 Dpt. Omiya Sta. (大宮駅):
SHINKANSEN HAYABUSA 11
3h 34min
13:34 Arr. SHIN-HAKODATE-HOKUTO: [12]
13:47 Dpt. SHIN-HAKODATE-HOKUTO:
HAKODATE LINER for HAKODATE
15min
14:02 Arr. Hakodate Sta. (函館駅):
Now how different do you think that would look if Tsuruoka was connected to Akita via shinkansen?
Hi! I love your videos. I hope that you could tell the history of JR West Special Rapid Service. Thank you for these insightful contents!
It was interesting. I'm looking forward to the next video.
面白かったです。次の動画も楽しみです。(*^▽^*)
If I'm as successful as I aim to be, I want to begin investing in the old rural towns that are being abandoned, and repopulate them. I hope the younger generations can begin to appreciate the quiet life and save rural Japan.
Good, informative and complicative video! Thank you, mr. Takeshi san!
I think, there are only lines with less than 200 transportation density are in danger. Most of rural and commuter lines of JR East are very important and crucial for local citizens, despite low transportation density, especially in weekdays, during rush hours. Because, not everyone have a car, also, there are lack of sufficient drivers for buses, if we will convert them into bus or BRT. Train consist of minimum 2 cars equip more people than 1 bus, also energy consumption is less. If we will close all the lines with density less than 2000, which rail lines will remain? Of course, only main lines, such as Tohoku line to Aomori, Joban line to Sendai and Shinkansen lines including mini-Shinkansen. Many rural areas will lose main transport to large cities, two coasts-Pacific and Japan Sea.
I watched a lot of videos of "nagomi view"(maybe you know) and this channel shows a lot of cabviews from different railways, and also from the deficit routes of JR East. I liked them, cause these routes brings some atmosphere of rural life and there are a lot of beautiful scenic views along the routes. For example, Iiyama line, Ofunato line, Ishinomaki line, Rikuu lines are good examples of them.
Mr. Takeshi san, maybe you know, which are transportation densities of Sanriku railway(non JR) and Aterazawa lines? These lines are quite popular among tourists and local citizens. Especially, Sanriku railway for its scenic views. Aterazawa line also carry a lot of students to schools during rush hours. I would like to know some statistics of ridership, transportation density and overall situation of these two routes. This is really interesting!
I've only read up on these routes on Wikipedia, but I didn't realize that JR East is literally burning money keeping some of them in operation, especially if JNR deemed anything with a density of less than 4,000 to be up for the specified local lines. I really want to see some rural rail in Japan so hopefully I make it there before it becomes too much of a problem.
Very informative. Also very sad to see how vulnerable the Tohoku region is when it comes to future cuts.
I think it would be seen very badly from a political point of view of JREast cuts these routes since it has so many profirable lines in Kanto and is even investing in them even more.
It would be a shame if these lines were cut as many of them are very scenic even though most of them run in areas where the weather conditions are so rough and density is so low it reminds a lot of the situation in hokkaido.
Could you tell us more about the yamagata shinkansen extension plan you just mentioned? Are they discussing extending the mini shinkansen line to Sakata?
Sakata is on the Uetsu route. The current terminus Shinjo is on the Ou route. An extension would be in opposite direction, not very plausible.
@@lewisho8114 at 7:45 he mentions there are plans to run the Yamagata Shinkansen on the Rikuu West Line so past Shinjo and on towards Sakata.
@@Digicola1 That would require cutting the Shinjo section back. Not possible.
It would be a shame to lose so many of these lines. I've been on quite a few and had wonderful experiences on a heap of these lines in Akita, Aomori, Iwate and Yamagata Prefectures. I have so many more in the southern parts of Tohoku and around Niigata, Nagano and Gunma left to explore, and I hope I'll get the opportunity once the world re-opens.
I find it quite bewildering how by looking at just passenger numbers and direct revenue, the operational make-or-break decisions are made for rail lines. Not just in Japan but in most Western countries as well. On the one hand, governments are complaining about the drain on rural areas because people move to the metropolitan areas. On the other hand, by taking away the infrastructure to these areas, even more people will want to move away because you don't want to be stuck in the countryside without means of transportation. Trains historically brought prosperity to the areas where new lines opened. So why not focus on making the countryside more attractive, with a modern and well-connected train network as a backbone, instead of just thinking of money in the pocket today, cannibalising existing infrastructure and thereby killing off the rural areas even faster? I don't get it..
I too feel like the lack of service, slow speeds, and poor coordination of connections (between their own trains, where the rail operator has full control, connections to other train operators, and train-bus, which requires working with the bus operators, too), is part of the problem. I've been looking at the JR West area lately (trying to optimize routes to cover all the deficit lines in Chugoku that @JPRail talked about in his JR West video on my next visit to Japan), but there's probably similar issues on JR East, and in the other regions, too.
For example, let's say we live and work in Miyoshi City (in Hiroshima Prefecture), and want to go to Mount Dogo for the weekend to ski. We want to maximize our time on the slopes, so we leave straight from work on Friday. There's a 17:30 train to Bingo-Ochiai, which seems promising. It gets in at 18:46, for an average speed of 36 km/h, including stops. Kinda slow for a nominally 85 km/h line with about 3.5 km average stop spacing, but it is a mountainous area, so it's difficult to avoid tight curves. The connecting train to Dogoyama isn't until 20:12, though, so we're waiting 10 minutes longer than we've spent on the train so far. We finally get to Dogoyama Station at 20:26, and whoops, the last bus to the resort left at 17:54.
That didn't work, so, let's leave first thing Saturday morning instead. The first train from Miyoshi to Bingo-Ochiai is at 6:55, arriving at 8:16. Way too late for the only morning train to Dogoyama, which left at 6:41. The next train to Dogoyama isn't until 14:38, so we may as well have taken the 13:01 from Miyoshi, arriving at Bingo-Ochiai at 14:21, and Dogoyama at 14:52. Then we get the 15:11 bus, arriving at the resort at 15:44, and most of the day's gone. And we're totally screwed going home on Sunday, with the only bus back to Dogoyama Station leaving at 6:59, and no train until 14:11. At least, these are the schedules in the summer. Maybe the situation's actually better during the ski season?
Or we could just drive, and be there in about an hour. 75 minutes if we want to be cheap, and don't take the expressway.
@@michaelhall4626 The Geibi line is especially problematic when it comes to service issues. And the Fukuen line is closed.
Hello Takeshi, do you know what train station is the least used train station in Japan?
There are so many stations especially in Hokkaido. Many stations do not have passengers.
Good detail here.
i would love to ride the Gono line and other Tohoku lines 🌸
Hell yeah Takeshi!!!
I’m afraid this channel is dead , since the Japanese channel has exploded in view and subscriber count