Luna Azul can take you from Tokyo to Akita or Aomori while you snooze.

The Shinkansen is usually the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B when traveling within Japan. Since the stations tend to be centrally located and there aren’t any time-consuming security checks to go through, the Shinkansen can get you to many destinations even more quickly than flying.

That doesn’t mean, though, that the Shinkansen is always the most time-efficient way to get around Japan, since as fast as the bullet train may be, the ride is still going to take up part of your day. On the other hand, a new train from JR East/East Japan Railway Company will take you between Tokyo and Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region while using up hardly any of your day, because you’ll be making most of the trip while you sleep.

JR East’s newly announced Luna Azul overnight sleeper train will connect Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station with Aomori Station in Aomori Prefecture, all the way at the northern end of Japan’s main island of Hokkaido. The 10-car train will pull out of Shinagawa at 9 p.m. and have you in Aomori at 9 a.m., with brief stops at Tokyo, Ueno, Omiya, and Takasaki Stations along the way at night and then at Akita, Hirosaki, and Shin Aomori Stations in the morning. The trip in the opposite direction will leave Aomori at 4 in the afternoon and get to Shinagawa at 7 a.m. the following day.

The train looks to strike a balance between comfort and utility, with differently designed private compartments to suit the needs of solo travelers, pairs, and families. The preview image below shows, clockwise from the top left, the Luna Comfort Grande, Luna Premium Wide, Luna Comfort Wide, and Luna Comfort configurations.

Guestrooms are found in nine of the cars, and the tenth is a lounge with wide windows and, presumably, drinks and snacks available for purchase.

The Luna Azul will make two round trips a week between Shinagawa and Aomori, traveling along the Joetsu and Uetsu Main Lines. Because Tohoku is especially cold and snowy in winter, though, travel demand for the region dips significantly during that part of the year, Shinagawa-Aomori will be the Luna Azul’s route between spring and autumn. In winter, it’ll instead switch to a seven-car express train that still goes out of Shinagawa in Tokyo, but runs to Naganoharakusatsuguchi Station in Gunma Prefecture, a non-overnight journey. Gunma isn’t exactly balmy in the winter either, but Naganoharakusatsuguchi Station works as an entry point to Gunma’s Kusatsu Onsen hot spring resort area, a popular place for travelers in the mood for a cozy warming soak.

▼ The Luna Azul’s spring-to-autumn route (red line) and winter route (pink line). The winter route also includes a stop in Shibukawa, another popular hot spring area that also boasts skiing options.

The Luna Azul is scheduled to go into service in the spring of 2027.

Source: JR East, PR Times
Images: PR Times
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End of an era is coming for ecological and economic reasons.

Train travel in Japan is going to be looking a little different, as East Japan Railway Company, a.k.a. JR East, has announced that it’ll be making a major change to its ticket design. Right now, JR East tickets have your starting station and fare printed on the front, and a magnetic strip on the back. At the gate, you slide your ticket into the slot, the gate opens up, and your ticket pops back up from another slot on the other side of the machine for you to grab as you continue on your way, then put into the other ticket gate at the exit from your destination station.

▼ A traveler inserting tickets into a gate at Nikko Station

However, JR East has announced it will be phasing out magnetic-strip tickets beginning next spring, with the eventual goal being to do away with them entirely for short-distance rides. In their place JR East will be introducing new non-magnetic tickets with a QR code that you scan at the gate instead.

▼ A video showing the front of the current magnetic-strip tickets on the left, and the upcoming QR-code tickets on the right.

The mockups in the above video are obviously jumbo-sized to make them easier to see, but the new tickets really will be larger than the current ones. JR East’s Magnetic-strip tickets measure 3 by 5.75 centimeters (1.2 by 2.3 inches), but the QR ones will be 5.75 by 8.5 inches, to make them easier to scan.

JR says there are two reasons it’s making the switch, one of which is an effort to be more environmentally friendly. JR East’s produces about 160 metric tons of ticket trash every year, and the magnetic backing has to be chemically treated before they can be disposed of. Because the QR-code tickets rely on optic scanning, though, they can be made of just regular old paper, eliminating both the potential ecological harm caused by disposed of magnetic strips and the cost to JR East to treat them.

A switch to QR codes will also reduce ticket gate machinery complexity, as they’ll require fewer moving parts than the currently complex array of gears and motors needed to propel a magnetic-strip ticket through the gate, and making QR code scanning the standard should also help promote smartphone digital ticketing services.

While the changeover will mark the end of a major chapter in Japanese train travel, many passengers stopped using magnetic-strip tickets quite some time ago. JR East’s Suica prepaid IC card became an instant hit following its launch in 2001, and it’s only grown in popularity in the years since thanks to its tap-payment simplicity and cross-functional capabilities as a way to pay for shopping, restaurant, and vending machine purchases too. JR East says that magnetic-strip tickets now account for only 2.5 percent of the rides taken on its trains, and for those who have already transitioned to Suica or other such IC cards, they’ll still be paying fares and passing through the gates as usual.

However, for some rail fans the tactile aspects of sliding the ticket into the gate, hearing the internal machinery whir and click, and grabbing the ticket as it comes out without breaking stride is a familiar and satisfying part of taking a train in Japan, so there will no doubt be people said to see it go. If this bittersweet news has them looking for comradery, they can find it among those who still remember the days before magnetic-strip tickets became the standard, when Japanese train stations were staffed with human ticket inspectors and the rhythmical ringing of their ticket punching tools during rush hour, as seen in the point queued in the video below.

JR East says it will be gradually discontinuing the magnetic-strip tickets come spring, so they won’t all be disappearing at once. In addition, magnetic-strip tickets will continue to be issued for Shinkansen and long-distance special express trains. This is likely because, depending on the passenger’s destination, these trains sometimes end up at stations in parts of Japan managed by one of the other divisions of the Japan Railways Group, which have not yet announced plans to get rid of magnetic-strip tickets. If you’re a rail fan, though, the next time you’re at a JR East station you might want to consider buying a lowest-fair magnetic-strip ticket, though, as something to remember the era by.

Source: Nitele News via Livedoor News, TBS News Dig
Top image ©SoraNews24
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