Abandoned Kansai

Choo-choo! The Japanese tourism hype train was abruptly stopped in its tracks and is about to gain traction again soon, probably from spring on. But let’s be honest: Japanese trains are overhyped!

The amount of glorified bullshit that is thrown out about and cultivated by Japan is mind-blowing – always popular: trains. According to weebs and other enthusiasts there is no doubt that Japanese trains are perfect! And while I have to admit that the Japanese railway system is really good overall and especially in comparison to other countries, it’s far from being perfect – and hyped by people who either haven’t been to Japan or rode four Shinkansen between Tokyo and Hiroshima.
First of all: Shinkansen are for Japanese trains what Tokyo is for Japan – technically part of the whole, but in reality its own fast-paced, overpriced microcosm that’s far from being representative. I’ve spent thousands of hours on all kinds of trains in Japan: commuter trains, Shinkansen, every shade of regional train (from local to Special Rapid Express), and even a couple of tourist trains that run only seasonal a few times a week on special days. And let me tell you something: The further you get away from the Shinkansen, the more dire the situation becomes. Sometimes it takes only one change to go from “on time and announcements in four languages” to “delayed by XX minutes and Japanese only”, to go from one connection every five minutes to five connections a day. And no, despite of what you might have heard or read, delays are not announced in increments of seconds, but minutes. (I had that moronic discussion with a fellow German back in 2012 on a business trip to Cologne when I made the mistake of admitting to speaking the local language while guiding a bunch of Japanese suits through the depths of the German public transportation system. “I’ve read that…!” “It’s not true!” “But the article said…” “I’m living in Japan and been there for six years, it’s minutes, not seconds.” “But I’ve read somewhere…!”)
Unlike the vast majority of Shinkansen, trains in the countryside are often delayed, and it’s not unusual to miss a connection, which is especially annoying in rural areas where there can be hours between trains. But most tourists don’t make that experience, because they are too busy hunting down the soul of the true Japan in their two week long stay between Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima. They don’t get the desperate adrenaline rush of missing their countryside stop on a two car wanman (“one man” – trains that are actually quite common these days and just have a driver, no conductor; so only the door at the very front opens, and if you are not aware of that, you’ll be stuck confused in the back until it’s too late and get dragged along for another 5 to 10k) – it’s an experience you won’t forget and probably only have once, but it’s like a rite of passenger… uhm… passage. Why are wanman more and more common? Because more and more train stations in the sticks are not manned anymore, because fewer and fewer people are using those lines – and apparently overtourism doesn’t affect the problem in a positive way, because Japan’s main Instagram and “brag on social media” spots are along the Shinkansen lines. Which is probably also the reason why it’s not really newsworthy that Japan’s rail network is getting shorter and shorter – a trend that started decades ago with the closure of industrial lines of heavy manufacturing still threatens about half of the track network in Hokkaido alone! Sure, repairing the bridge to Kansai Airport and its railroad part within six days after it was damaged by Typhoon Jebi on September 4th 2018 made news worldwide – but nobody is talking about all those regional lines… The important Sekisho and Nemuro Lines between Sapporo and Obihiro were partly closed for months in 2016 after torrential rain. In January 2015 the Hidaka Main Line was shortened by 116 km to just 30.5 km after it got severely damaged by a winter storm – it closed for good officially on April 1st 2021 as JR decided not to repair it. On October 8th 2009 Typhoon Melor took out 17.7 km of the Meisho Line in Mie prefecture – repairs took six and a half years (not six days!) and the line fully opened in March 2016 again. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head, disruptions I know about because I was affected by them. And don’t get me started about those tiny lines with half a dozen connections per day, sometimes 4, 5, 6 hours between connections… Or the ticket prices! Sure, if you are a tourist and eligible to use the dirt cheap countrywide JR Pass you don’t have a reason to complain, but for most people (and overseas tourists are still not most people!) pay a ton of money for trains that require surcharges, which includes all Shinkansen and most express trains. Fun fact: For me, based in Osaka, it’s cheaper to fly mid-distance within Japan roundtrip than it is to go to Tokyo by Shinkansen one way. Which is why I explore so much more in Kyushu, Tohoku, and Hokkaido than I do in Kanto…
Sure, overall the train system in Japan is good – and much better than in most other countries, but please spare me the glorified weeaboo bullshit unless you’ve always paid full price, rode thousands of terribly crowded rush hour trains and got stuck in the countryside for hours due to delays!

And that finally brings us to the Peninsula Train & Station, which combines an abandoned train on open track and an abandoned station of the same line a few kilometers away. Japan has lots of peninsulas and a lot of them with train lines suffered from cuts – either partly or completely, because hardly anybody wanted to go past that scenic onsen town halfway down the coast, for example. There must be hundreds of small abandoned train stations all over Japan, lots of them demolished or collapsed; the remaining one turned into cafés or shops at best, or are decaying and hard to find at worst. The Peninsula Train & Station were part of a larger network and opened for business in the late 1950s. In the mid-90s most stations were unmanned, the trains “wanman” – 10 years later a section of more than 60 km length was closed for good, including more than two dozen stations. The Peninsula Train Station was probably the ugliest station building I’ve ever seen, fortunately it could be easily circumvented and ignored. The trackless platform on the other hand was quite lovely, especially on that late summer day I came there to have a look around. Perfect for a photo shooting, with or without a model. The abandoned train a few dozen kilometers away was still sitting on its track on an earth mount between some fields and a forest – easy to take pictures of from a distance, but quite a pain to get to as the mound was overgrown and the vegetation was slowly swallowing the train. It was a beauty though, slowly fading away being exposed to the elements. Unfortunately a couple of suzumebachi cut that session short, but other than the hassle it was a great experience – especially in hindsight… 🙂

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