Japan's four major islands, Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku are connected by a widespread and reliable network of railways.
For foreign visitors,
Japanese Trains are a very expedient means to explore Japan. About 70% of Japanese railway network is owned and operated by the
Japan Railways .
Japan Railways is the descendant of the
Japanese National Railways , which was privatized due to huge debts in the year of 1987. The remaining 30%
Japanese railway network belongs to several other private railway companies, especially in and around the metropolitan areas of Japan. The
Japan Railways Group is comprised of six regional passenger railway companies, namely JR Hokkaido, JR East, JR Central, JR West, JR Shikoku, and JR Kyushu. All these railway companies altogether operate a nationwide network of urban, regional and interregional
Japanese train lines ,
Japanese night trains and
Japanese bullet trains or shinkansen .
In Japan there are several private railway companies. The smaller ones consist of just one railway line, while others control quite widespread railway networks. Some of the major Japanese private railway companies are listed below:
- Tobu
- Odakyu
- Tokyu
- Keisei
- Seibu
- Keikyu
- Keio
- Meitetsu
- Kintetsu
- Nankai
- Hankyu
- Keihan and many more.
Japanese train operating system provides effective, easy, understandable timetable which can help you to get the time schedule of all the Shinkansen super express trains, Limited Express trains, and overnight trains including Express trains and Rapid trains in Japan. Some hints for reading train timetables are given below:
- The major cities served by the Japanese trains are listed at the top of each timetable followed by the names of the trains on that specific route.
- If the station names are mentioned on the left side, the Japanese train timetable should be read from top to bottom for individual schedules. If the station names are in the middle column, then the left side schedules should be read from top to bottom and the right side schedules from bottom to top.
- Train timings remain listed as Lv. or leave or Ar. or arrive on the timetable. Most of the intermediate train stopovers are only a minute or two long so a train marked as Lv. 8:00 will probably be arriving at 7:58 or 7:59. All Japanese trains are always on the scheduled time.
