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21Nov/132

Sleeper Trains to be retired by 2015

This was sad news... Japan has a brilliant selection of sleeper trains and, although they have been phasing a lot of them out over the years, to hear that they're getting rid of the top-notch services was heart-breaking.

My experiences on sleeper trains in Japan has always been fantastic. The staff are amazing, dedicated to their work and more than happy to help out a non-fluent Japanese speaker. Currently my checklist includes the Twilight Express, Nihonkai, Kitaguni and Hokutosei, but I'm think I need to get the others ticked before they're scrapped.

So, here's the original article and here's the english version. Noteable points:

The Japanese Fiscal Year runs from April of said year to March 31st of the next. So 'End of Fiscal 2014' would be March 31st 2015 and 'End of Fiscal 2015' would be March 31st 2016.

Note that the Sunrise Seto and Sunrise Izumo will continue to run.

I can understand that they're scrapping the older (although very well maintained) services ... but it's astonishing that JR East is scrapping the services that have just received brand new locomotives to haul them! The EF510-500 Series locomotives were only introduced in 2010 to pull both the Casseiopeia and Hokutosei services.

Something random to check out: Here's a link to EF81-104 (one of the Twilight Express Locomotives) being chopped up. Turns out that's the one I travelled behind back in July 2009. RIP.

Pictures of the Sleeper Trains

Nihon-Kai

NihonKai pauses at ShinOsaka Nihonkai at Osaka Nihonkai Headmark
Nihonkai B-Class Nihonkai at Shinosaka Nihonkai paused Goodbye Nihonkai

Twilight Express

The Twilight Express at Shin Osaka The Twilight Express pulls into ShinOsaka Twilight Express en-route to ShinOsaka
Twilight Express heads to Osaka Station Twilight Express enters Higashi-Muroran Twilight Express A-Class
My room on the Twilight Express Twilight Express Salon du Nord Twilight Express dirty after travel from Sapporo to Tsuruga
Twilight Express EF81 104 joins (passing Thunderbird) Twilight Express EF81 104

Hokutosei

Hokutosei arrives DD51s on Hokutosei Grand Chariot in Hokutosei
Hokutosei at Fukushima Hokutosei at Fukushima

Kitaguni

Kitaguni at Osaka Station Kitaguni at Osaka Station Kitaguni at Osaka Station
Internal view from top bunk of Kitaguni External view from top bunk of Kitaguni Kitaguni at Naoetsu

Unfortunately, I've never seen the Casseiopeia in the flesh... Will need to do so before they cut that up too.