Yufuin no Mori
The US has no lack of leisure rail. It often takes the form of dinner trains, or “excursion trains,” providing no service beyond the leisure itself. I’m not suggesting that these trains lack value, but they are indeed lost opportunities.
Japan’s southern Island of Kyushu is large - just over 14,000mi² (roughly the size Massachusetts and Connecticut combined) - and has no shortage of beautiful scenery, alluring destinations, and vibrant towns. As is the case with nearly all of Japan, the Island is wonderfully connected through JR Kyushu’s vast rail network (including Shinkansen trains), and specifically their, often quirky, excursion trains.
Different from the United States however, these “sightseeing trains,” as they’re called, provide not only leisure, but also legitimate transportation value to both citizens and tourists. Each of these 10 unique trains run alongside of and complement existing, normal train service. One such train, the Yufuin no Mori, is a train my family and I took last January from Hakata Station in Fukuoka, to the small onsen town of Yufuin.
At just 119 km, this two and a half hour train journey is not fast by any stretch of the imagination. But it doesn’t really need to be. The ride is pleasant, the views are beautiful, and the train itself is stunning both inside and out. As the risk of sounding cliche, the journey itself is the destination. But because the train actually goes somewhere, it has a completely different level of usefulness than the average 19-mile-loop heritage railroad or dinner train in America.
The Yufuin no Mori runs three round trips a day between Hakata Station and Yufuin, with one of those trips extending two additional stops to the towns of Oita and Beppu (both equally as charming as Yufuin). While there is no formal dining car, the train does have a cafe-bar car serving bento boxes for a snack, as well as beverages and desserts. The scenery on the route certainly rivals anything you might find in America (with maybe the exception of the California Zephyr and the Canadian). The service on board is truly exceptional, but this is of course commonplace throughout JR, and Japan in general.
Lastly, the train calls from Hakata Station, which has excellent regional connectivity, but more importantly, is the final stop on the San’yo Shinkansen, a high speed rail line running from Hakata to Osaka. From Hakata however, it is possible to board Nozomi super-express trains for the 1063km trip all the way to Tokyo, through Shin-Osaka, as the tracks connect.
Excursion trains in America really ought to become more than glorified moving restaurants - they should be fully integrated into the passenger rail network. We are, at best, 25 years, a few major policy changes, and billions of dollars away from something like JR Kyushu’s network, but the idea is worth pursuing. Having legitimate excursion trains from Boston North Station to a destination in the White Mountains in New Hampshire during the winter, such as Conway, comes to mind as a possible popular rail route. It certainly would make the Conway Scenic Railroad a little more appealing.
Boston does have an existing ski train out of North Station: the Fitchburg Commuter Rail line, running from BON to Wachusett mountain taking just over an hour. As driving to and parking at ski resorts becomes increasingly more of a headache, ski trains could quite nicely fill the void - they already do in Colorado.
