I lived in Tokyo for a little over 3 years from 2017 to 2020, and this video brings back some really fond memories.
Here's a few fun facts about Japan's trains:
- Every single station has a different song that plays. Here is a sampling of some: https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o
- In the deep subway stations they pump in bird sounds to make it not feel so deep
- The trains can be paid for with a specific card called the Suica card and/or pasmo card. This can also be used as a debit card at various shops. But recently due to the chip shortage these cards have been harder to get.
I always thought the bird sounds were more of a guide for blind people, to give them a reference point for where the platform is, because I've heard them on above ground stations too.
Yeah, those bird chirps threw me off in the beginning: I thought some bird(s) has set up nests in there. But then I realized how uniform the calls were and thus must be electronic.
> The trains can be paid for with a specific card called the Suica card and/or pasmo card. This can also be used as a debit card at various shops. But recently due to the chip shortage these cards have been harder to get.
Something to note is that if you have a recent-ish iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), Apple Watch (Series 3 or later), Pixel (4 or later), or Pixel Watch, regardless of where they're sold those all have the Japan-specific bits in their NFC hardware required for the digital wallet version of Suica and other Japanese IC cards. For other Android manufacturers (Samsung, etc), you'll have to get ahold of Japanese models for that capability.
You can however buy a physical card (at a few of the major stations) then transfer it to your phone. Once it's there you still can't reload it directly, but you can use a recharge station (with cash) - just put your phone down where the card would go.
FWIW I've been using Suica on a Japanese Garmin smart watch and refilling it with Google Pay on an international card without too many problems (and before that with Apple Pay with the same card on iPhone/Apple Watch), although there are probably some gotchas (Apple Pay at POS seems to be pretty hit and miss for in Tokyo and I've never figured out why).
Outside of Tokyo you can still easily get one of the other regional IC cards [1]. They can now all be used everywhere in Japan including the Tokyo subway, provided you don't start travel in one region and end it in another.
The Japanese IC systems all use FeliCa, which not all devices support. I believe Garmin only has it enabled (unsure if this is licensing or hardware) in their East Asian models (Hong Kong's Octopus cards also FeliCa).
As a test I just successfully charged my Suica in my iPhone (card was issued in 2019) with my EU-issued Visa (issued 2021) through Apple Pay.
Is there maybe some another condition that may influence whether it works or not?
Edit: this article explains it: https://atadistance.net/2023/03/15/troubleshooting-apple-pay...
My Visa is actually listed as one of those which still work ("Some VISA debit cards work for adding money to Suica (DKB, Hyundai Zero, Revolut works depending on the country of the account, no other issuers confirmed).")
Yes as per the article I'm luckily an outlier. :)
But this is a very unfortunate situation especially in combination with the stopped sale of physical cards. I still have an old PASMO which I used for a commuter pass in 2016-2017 so I may be able to use this card when I visit Japan again next year. Well, unless these cards expire. Not sure about that.
Is it known whether this foreign-VISA situation is supposed to resolve and get fixed eventually? The article didn't mention whether the current situation is on purpose or an error. I fear that if this is on purpose it might actually get worse and other foreign cards eventually stop working as well.
>Not in Japan anymore otherwise I would have tried again.
I'm neither. Does this change anything? I could charge from home directly in ¥. But the card is from DKB so expected to work.
It was possible before, I had used it until last year!
But earlier this year I checked in with some 240 JPY left and found out that I couldn't charge it during the trip... Luckily it was enough for the 2 stations in the Osaka Metro to save me an awkward moment.
Unfortunately I could not get Suica to work on my Pixel 7a, while a fellow traveller with an iPhone had no issue. So AFAICT for Pixels you sadly still need a Japanese device to use Suica in Google Wallet.
The Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 apparently does have the hardware/software needed for Suica, even on non-Japanese editions of the phone.
However, it's blocked by Google in software depending on the device SKU (maybe because Google doesn't want to pay licensing costs?). If you have a rooted Android phone, you could bypass this check, see https://github.com/kormax/osaifu-keitai-google-pixel.
Hopefully it means that a future version of the Pixel will officially support it world-wide, but who knows. Japan has one of the highest rates of iPhone usage in the world, so there's not much incentive to support Android users.
In the Chigasaki train station (Kanagawa Prefecture), the tune is from pop tunesmith legend Kuwata Keisuke. That is his hometown. (Been since 2014, evidently.)
What I found really strange when I went there for a few weeks, was that the entire network ground to a halt before midnight. And this for a city of 25 million people.
Which I guess is why I found people sleeping in their suits near Shinjuku station. I still wonder where all the bar staff and their customers went to after closing up for the night. I asked the hotel staff and they said they could sleep on-site.
First is that it drives people to head home earlier, and then they often stop at a second place in their local neighborhood. I honestly think part of why there are still bars in the smaller neighborhoods outside of Tokyo is because of this. You can feel a bar empty out around midnight, and the people who stay behind are all locals. In NYC, those people (the ones from NJ who had to catch the PATH at least) would be derided as "bridge and tunnel" folk, but here it's most people.
Secondly, it gives the subway a full 5 hours or so to do maintenance and repairs. In NYC, they were constantly re-routing trains during late night hours to do this kind of work. It is pretty disruptive for passengers and they come up with crazy workarounds like taking a bus between stations which really don't even make sense.
I have used both systems too, and while the NYC transit system is a shithole, I greatly appreciate the 24 hour service. There are also usually alternatives available for when things get shutdown.
No, the whole public transit system shuts down sometime after midnight. At that point, you can either walk, ride a bicycle (there are rental/bikeshare bikes available), or take a taxi.
It also means that the first train in the morning out of certain stations is an odd mix of early morning businessmen in suits on their way to work and overnight clubbers/partyers on their drunken way home
> - In the deep subway stations they pump in bird sounds to make it not feel so deep
The bird sounds are for visually impared people, to let them know they are approaching a staircase.
> Japan followed a similar path as the West before World War II, but afterwards diverged. As in the West, railroading started out very laissez-faire in the 19th century, but came under state control in the beginning of the 20th. But after World War II, while nearly all railways and intracity buses in Europe and North America were nationalized, Japan stayed its pre-war course, with the railway industry retaining its sizable minority of private firms.
They became further privatized in the 80s, and now there are multiple competing rail companies in Japan. It's my understanding that their business model is to build rails, run near breakeven on the actual trains, and then capitalize on the businesses that spring up around the lines (by purchasing nearby real estate and opening up shopping centers & restaurants).
They are privately operated since the 80s, but the vast majority of their initial development was government funded.
As far as I understand the privatized companies are monopolies-- these companies were formed from the JNR by geographic area served (hence "JR East", "JR West" etc.)
In major cities like Tokyo and Osaka, J(N)R is far from the only player in town, there are numerous "really" private railways like Keikyu, Odakyu, Keio, Tokyu etc. And they all followed the same very profitable playbook of snapping up rural land, building a train line to it, and then building/selling off rights to build apartments, shopping malls etc on the now much more valuable land.
That article didn't touch on what happened before JGR/JNR. Prior to railway nationalization around 1906-1910, most lines beyond Tokyo-Osaka were built and owned by private companies. This includes Sanyo Main Line (previously built and owned by Sanyo Railway, not to be confused with today Sanyo Electric Railway), and Tohoku Main Line (previously built and owned by Nippon Railway).
The original lines may be from the private era but JNR also built a lot.
The Saikyo, Keiyo, and Musashino Lines in Tokyo were all built by JNR. So was all the Shinkansen. And all the main lines around Tokyo were quadrupled or sextupled by JNR at great cost. And let’s not forget the feats of the Kanmon tunnel to Kyushu, the Seikan tunnel to Hokkaido, and the Great Seto Bridge to Shikoku.
Tokyo Metro and Toei are also state-owned, and private operators directly benefit from the through operations into the Yamanote loop.
If you were to talk in terms of asset value, then yes, the government did fund most of it; but that was because the Shinkansen were enormously expensive compared to the old, narrow curvy mainline network. In fact, the large Shinkansen debts are why JNR had to be privatized; the government restructured the private groups so that all the debt was confined to a ‘bad bank’ paid for by the government.
My understanding is that this is also the economic play for Brightline, which has an operating passenger line in Florida and is planning to start on a new high speed line from LA to Las Vegas.
They are owned by Fortress Investment Group and are buying real estate along the lines, which is likely to make more profit than the operations of the rail lines themselves.
I don't have a super strong opinion on public vs private ownership for public transit systems, but I do think the idea that the owner/operator of the rail line also owns and develops property around the stations is a good idea. It's a positive feedback loop where good service creates demand for development, and development provides more customers for the transit service. I feel like in the US at least we have a tendency to handicap public services from making choices that would let them generate profit (ie investing in real estate and developing train stations into shopping malls) while also complaining that the public service doesn't generate a profit.
“Caojiawan Station may not be in the most popular area for now,” one worker told Chinese media company Manner Video, a Chinese digital video production company. “But with the development of the rail route, it’s possible that it’ll attract more people to the area and help hasten urban development along the line.”
The fact that Texas had a thing like this being built only for it to get mothballed by angry GOP members mad at the _concept_ of a train is so depressing.
It is really neat to visit cities with a functioning transit system. Whenever I'm on business trips, I actually enjoy purchasing a 3-7 day ticket (depending on how long we stay) instead of taking taxis or ubers around. Just getting on the train, go somewhere, and take a look. Still haven't been robbed, assaulted, or experienced anything too bad - but that of course depends on where you are. (Tokyo felt super safe)
To be fair, when I visited New York for a couple of months, I traveled all over with their metro and haven't been robbed, assaulted or experienced anything too bad either. Except that on two occasions somebody shat in carriage, that's just gross.
Really nice video on roaming around Tokyo in a single full day (around 20 hours) covering 19 stations and 199 km travel in several train modes (on the ground, elevated, underground and tram).
It seems that the OP missed the most relevant train station and area to tourists and HN crowds, namely Akihabara.
One tip for traveling in train for tourists is to use your existing Japan Railways card or JR pass to travel around Tokyo not only for inter-city travels [1]. However, this limits your travels to only routes serviced by Japan Railways or JR company but you can choose to mix the routes (free JR pass and non free) for your preferred cost and convenient.
All the train routes with expected time of arrival (ETA) can be planned via Google Map App that suddenly become Google Map on steroid due to its access to the real-time data of railway network provided by Japanese govt. Amazingly, you can plan your journey accordingly in real-time even if there is an unexpected train delay. I wish more countries provide this real-time transport data available to the public (residents and tourists) so they can travel as efficiently as possible around the country and cities.
55 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] threadHere's a few fun facts about Japan's trains:
- Every single station has a different song that plays. Here is a sampling of some: https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o
- In the deep subway stations they pump in bird sounds to make it not feel so deep
- The trains can be paid for with a specific card called the Suica card and/or pasmo card. This can also be used as a debit card at various shops. But recently due to the chip shortage these cards have been harder to get.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakura_Sakura
Komagome used to be called 染井村 (Somei Mura). It's supposedly the origin of that famous 染井吉野 (Somei-Yoshino) cherry tree.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2htXigbGsqQ
The first jingles were by Hiroaki Ide:
* http://connect.ajet.net/2020/04/11/one-man-and-a-history-of-...
A profile on Minoru Mukaiya, who has composed a lot of the more recent ones:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSG5IkRA9BE
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Mukaiya
Something to note is that if you have a recent-ish iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), Apple Watch (Series 3 or later), Pixel (4 or later), or Pixel Watch, regardless of where they're sold those all have the Japan-specific bits in their NFC hardware required for the digital wallet version of Suica and other Japanese IC cards. For other Android manufacturers (Samsung, etc), you'll have to get ahold of Japanese models for that capability.
FWIW I've been using Suica on a Japanese Garmin smart watch and refilling it with Google Pay on an international card without too many problems (and before that with Apple Pay with the same card on iPhone/Apple Watch), although there are probably some gotchas (Apple Pay at POS seems to be pretty hit and miss for in Tokyo and I've never figured out why).
[1] https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_003.html
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIFARE
You can charge up the iphone suica balance using cash in the machines... a bit weird but that's what I did.
Getting back home first thing I did was get a mastercard to complement my visa, as it seems EU mastercards still works to charge Suica.
It would be interesting to read about why this happened, it feels like there are interesting payment processing details to learn from it :)
Edit: this article explains it: https://atadistance.net/2023/03/15/troubleshooting-apple-pay... My Visa is actually listed as one of those which still work ("Some VISA debit cards work for adding money to Suica (DKB, Hyundai Zero, Revolut works depending on the country of the account, no other issuers confirmed).")
Not in Japan anymore otherwise I would have tried again.
This article, linked to from a sibling comment here, seems to indicate it shouldn't work for you :) https://atadistance.net/2023/07/15/foreign-visa-cards-blocke...
edit: ha. you read the same articles better than I did.
Is it known whether this foreign-VISA situation is supposed to resolve and get fixed eventually? The article didn't mention whether the current situation is on purpose or an error. I fear that if this is on purpose it might actually get worse and other foreign cards eventually stop working as well.
>Not in Japan anymore otherwise I would have tried again.
I'm neither. Does this change anything? I could charge from home directly in ¥. But the card is from DKB so expected to work.
But earlier this year I checked in with some 240 JPY left and found out that I couldn't charge it during the trip... Luckily it was enough for the 2 stations in the Osaka Metro to save me an awkward moment.
Unfortunately I could not get Suica to work on my Pixel 7a, while a fellow traveller with an iPhone had no issue. So AFAICT for Pixels you sadly still need a Japanese device to use Suica in Google Wallet.
However, it's blocked by Google in software depending on the device SKU (maybe because Google doesn't want to pay licensing costs?). If you have a rooted Android phone, you could bypass this check, see https://github.com/kormax/osaifu-keitai-google-pixel.
Hopefully it means that a future version of the Pixel will officially support it world-wide, but who knows. Japan has one of the highest rates of iPhone usage in the world, so there's not much incentive to support Android users.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrMeLLXifBY
I noticed the tune when passing through. Otherwise I wouldn't know where the dude is from.
Compare with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK5xSs9jBlk
Which I guess is why I found people sleeping in their suits near Shinjuku station. I still wonder where all the bar staff and their customers went to after closing up for the night. I asked the hotel staff and they said they could sleep on-site.
First is that it drives people to head home earlier, and then they often stop at a second place in their local neighborhood. I honestly think part of why there are still bars in the smaller neighborhoods outside of Tokyo is because of this. You can feel a bar empty out around midnight, and the people who stay behind are all locals. In NYC, those people (the ones from NJ who had to catch the PATH at least) would be derided as "bridge and tunnel" folk, but here it's most people.
Secondly, it gives the subway a full 5 hours or so to do maintenance and repairs. In NYC, they were constantly re-routing trains during late night hours to do this kind of work. It is pretty disruptive for passengers and they come up with crazy workarounds like taking a bus between stations which really don't even make sense.
(Tokyo seems not even to have buses running at night, which is really strange.)
> Japan followed a similar path as the West before World War II, but afterwards diverged. As in the West, railroading started out very laissez-faire in the 19th century, but came under state control in the beginning of the 20th. But after World War II, while nearly all railways and intracity buses in Europe and North America were nationalized, Japan stayed its pre-war course, with the railway industry retaining its sizable minority of private firms.
They became further privatized in the 80s, and now there are multiple competing rail companies in Japan. It's my understanding that their business model is to build rails, run near breakeven on the actual trains, and then capitalize on the businesses that spring up around the lines (by purchasing nearby real estate and opening up shopping centers & restaurants).
As far as I understand the privatized companies are monopolies-- these companies were formed from the JNR by geographic area served (hence "JR East", "JR West" etc.)
The bloomberg story is really light on details for why and how the privatization occurred; for a much more in-depth view, see S.Y. Lee's Substack, for example this post: https://seungylee14.substack.com/p/the-death-and-privatizati...
(An interesting fact is that most of JNR's debt at the time was retained by the government while the assets and revenue were privatized)
> , but the vast majority of their initial development was government funded
Source?? Most countries developed railroads with private investments first.
People seem to think nowadays that all the infrastructure we have has sprung out of thin air by pure goverment will or something.
The Saikyo, Keiyo, and Musashino Lines in Tokyo were all built by JNR. So was all the Shinkansen. And all the main lines around Tokyo were quadrupled or sextupled by JNR at great cost. And let’s not forget the feats of the Kanmon tunnel to Kyushu, the Seikan tunnel to Hokkaido, and the Great Seto Bridge to Shikoku.
Tokyo Metro and Toei are also state-owned, and private operators directly benefit from the through operations into the Yamanote loop.
If you were to talk in terms of asset value, then yes, the government did fund most of it; but that was because the Shinkansen were enormously expensive compared to the old, narrow curvy mainline network. In fact, the large Shinkansen debts are why JNR had to be privatized; the government restructured the private groups so that all the debt was confined to a ‘bad bank’ paid for by the government.
They are owned by Fortress Investment Group and are buying real estate along the lines, which is likely to make more profit than the operations of the rail lines themselves.
I don't have a super strong opinion on public vs private ownership for public transit systems, but I do think the idea that the owner/operator of the rail line also owns and develops property around the stations is a good idea. It's a positive feedback loop where good service creates demand for development, and development provides more customers for the transit service. I feel like in the US at least we have a tendency to handicap public services from making choices that would let them generate profit (ie investing in real estate and developing train stations into shopping malls) while also complaining that the public service doesn't generate a profit.
This CNN article shows some good pictures in 2017; https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/chongqing-china-metro... . It's just a concrete nub nestling in some undergrowth.
“Caojiawan Station may not be in the most popular area for now,” one worker told Chinese media company Manner Video, a Chinese digital video production company. “But with the development of the rail route, it’s possible that it’ll attract more people to the area and help hasten urban development along the line.”
Well, somebody sure decided to build right next to it: https://en.rattibha.com/thread/1647469687335428097
It seems that the OP missed the most relevant train station and area to tourists and HN crowds, namely Akihabara.
One tip for traveling in train for tourists is to use your existing Japan Railways card or JR pass to travel around Tokyo not only for inter-city travels [1]. However, this limits your travels to only routes serviced by Japan Railways or JR company but you can choose to mix the routes (free JR pass and non free) for your preferred cost and convenient.
All the train routes with expected time of arrival (ETA) can be planned via Google Map App that suddenly become Google Map on steroid due to its access to the real-time data of railway network provided by Japanese govt. Amazingly, you can plan your journey accordingly in real-time even if there is an unexpected train delay. I wish more countries provide this real-time transport data available to the public (residents and tourists) so they can travel as efficiently as possible around the country and cities.
[1] JR pass:
http://www.jrpass.com