Train Suite Shiki-shima Begins Service From Tokyo

Train Suite Shiki-shima made its first journey on 1 May 2017, leaving Ueno station in Tokyo for a tour of northern Japan. Operated by JR East, it is a cruise train in the Japanese sense: not a means of getting somewhere, but a circular journey of several days on which the train itself, its food and its stops are the purpose. It carries a maximum of 34 passengers in ten cars.

The train was designed by Ken Okuyama, the industrial designer known for his work on Ferrari and on Japan’s bullet trains. Its champagne-gold exterior is pierced by irregular, angular windows, and at each end is an observation car with glass walls and ceiling, where passengers sit facing the track. In between are a lounge car, whose white, tree-like interior holds a piano and a fireplace, a dining car and six sleeping cars.

There are 17 suites. Fifteen are standard suites with their own shower and toilet. The other two, in a single car, are the ones that made headlines: a split-level maisonette and a flat suite, each with a bath made of hinoki cypress. The materials throughout come from the regions the train crosses, including lacquer, washi paper and metalwork from eastern Japan.

The engineering matters as much as the decor. Shiki-shima draws electricity from overhead lines where they exist and switches to its own diesel generators on non-electrified track, which allows it to travel from Tokyo through the Tohoku region and across to Hokkaido without a change of locomotive. Itineraries run from two to four days depending on the season, with excursions to hot springs, craft workshops and restaurants along the way.

Demand was extraordinary. Fares at launch ranged from ¥440,000 to ¥1.95 million, and places were allocated by lottery; applications for the first departures exceeded availability many times over, with the top suite on the inaugural trip oversubscribed 76-fold.

Shiki-shima was the second of Japan’s three great cruise trains, after Kyushu’s Seven Stars, described in OKYTO’s guide to touring Kyushu aboard the Seven Stars, and a few weeks before JR West’s Twilight Express Mizukaze. Journeys begin in Tokyo, from a dedicated platform at Ueno.