"Joyful" Trains

  • Published on : 26/06/2016
  • by : Japan Experience

Special and wonderful trains for a one-of-a-kind Japan Rail experience

Use your JR Pass to discover some of Japan's unique trains, just a few of many! Get your Japan Rail Pass today - available in 7, 14, and 21-day passes.

Tatami-floor train: the first joyful train

The first joyful train started in the early 1960s, when a vintage turn-of-the-century train was outfitted with tatami floors for a traditional Japanese zashiki feel. You can still find these kind of interiors in joyful trains today, too! Sit on cushions around a table with a few friends, or on zaisu legless chairs along a long, traditional table, or...

The Kotatsu train

...You can even keep warm and toasty and travel in style in a kotatsu joyful train! Kotatsu are tables with a heater on the underside and a blanket covering them, a very traditional (and widely used) method of keeping warm during cold Japanese winters. Iwate Prefecture in northern Japan boasts this fun-looking kotatsu train.

Kotatsu

Kotatsu

© By RiceCracker - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59216345

Yufuin no mori

Other trains are less about novelty and more about the experience of where you're going. The Yufuin no Mori (and its newer sibling the Shin-Yufuin no Mori) train takes travellers to the famous Yufuin hotsprings near Beppu, in the island of Kyushu. The dark wood interior makes the trip through the southern forests a beautiful, nature-inspired journey.

Yufuin No Mori

Yufuin No Mori

©Tayawee Supan, unsplash

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