I’m not a fan of contemporary art. In fact, if I were to speak plainly on the matter, I’d risk saying something unprintable. That said, I’m an incurable railway enthusiast through and through … and when I learned that one of Japan’s famous shinkansen trains had been transformed into a high-speed art gallery, riding thatContinue reading “Rail Report: Niigata to Echigo-Yuzawa on the Genbi Shinkansen, Japan (30 September 2017)”
Category Archives: Trains
Rail Report: Seoul to Busan on the KTX, South Korea (04 June 2017)
I’ve taken high-speed rail services countless times in Japan, but not (until recently) in Korea, even though I holiday there at least once every year. That changed one bright summer’s day this past June, when I broke away from Seoul to spend a few days in faraway Busan – and rode Korea’s blazingly fast KTXContinue reading “Rail Report: Seoul to Busan on the KTX, South Korea (04 June 2017)”
Rail Report: Seoul to Suwon on the O-Train, South Korea (28 January 2017)
Suwon isn’t all that far from Seoul, but I was happy to try one of Korea’s long-haul tourist rail services even on the fairly short commute between these two cities. Today, let’s have a look at KORAIL’s O-Train.
Field Report: Kyōto Railway Museum, Japan (12 November 2016)
When it comes to Japan, my main areas of interest are castles and trains – and no visit is ever complete without me adding to my knowledge of one or the other (usually both). In this post, we turn the spotlight upon the country’s newest major railway museum: a veritable playground for train-obsessed chaps likeContinue reading “Field Report: Kyōto Railway Museum, Japan (12 November 2016)”
Rail-Air Report: The Keisei Skyliner and Narita Airport’s LCC Terminal, Tōkyō, Japan (02 October 2016)
I write about flights and interesting rail journeys from time to time, but I don’t normally give airports or ordinary train commutes the same treatment. As a postscript to the series documenting my October 2016 weekend holiday in Tōkyō, let’s make an exception and take a quick look at the terminal I flew home fromContinue reading “Rail-Air Report: The Keisei Skyliner and Narita Airport’s LCC Terminal, Tōkyō, Japan (02 October 2016)”
Rail Report: Trainspotting my way from Ōsaka to Takamatsu, Japan (10 July 2015)
Getting there is half the fun, or so the adage goes – and this very often rings true for a railway enthusiast who undertakes a long-distance journey in the train paradise that is Japan. Today’s trip takes me from Ōsaka to Takamatsu, capital of Kagawa Prefecture on the island of Shikoku. We’ll have a lookContinue reading “Rail Report: Trainspotting my way from Ōsaka to Takamatsu, Japan (10 July 2015)”
Rail Report: From Tottori to Ōsaka, Japan on JR-West Limited Express Trains (09 July 2015)
It takes an enormous fleet of trains to serve JR-West‘s sprawling territory, and one stands a good chance of encountering several different examples on even a single day’s worth of travel. Let’s have a look at some of them as we cut across western Japan.
Rail Report: Tōkyō to Izumo on the Sunrise Izumo overnight train, Japan (05-06 July 2015)
In the summer of 2015, I set off on the longest continuous land journey I’d ever undertaken in my life, travelling west across nearly a thousand kilometres of track from Tōkyō to Shimane Prefecture. Rather than contend with a long daytime train ride and the inevitable transfers, I decided to sleep away the journey –Continue reading “Rail Report: Tōkyō to Izumo on the Sunrise Izumo overnight train, Japan (05-06 July 2015)”
Field Report: A day at the JR East Railway Museum, Saitama, Japan (04 July 2015)
Diego travels to a major transportation museum just north of Tōkyō, where the exhibits are bound to leave train enthusiasts feeling as giddy as kids in a toy store.
Rail Report: A touch of trainspotting in Tōkyō, Hiraizumi, and Ichinoseki, Japan (03 July 2015)
On a wet July day in Tōkyō (just a sliver over a year ago now), I decided to escape the dreadful weather by travelling hundreds of miles north to the drier landscapes of Iwate Prefecture … but we’ll save the sightseeing part for a different post. Right now, let’s talk about something else: the trainsContinue reading “Rail Report: A touch of trainspotting in Tōkyō, Hiraizumi, and Ichinoseki, Japan (03 July 2015)”
Within striking distance 