Twilight Express Mizukaze Begins Service in Western Japan
JR West's ten-car sleeper train for 34 passengers entered service on 17 June 2017, with routes along the San'in and San'yo coasts from Kyoto and Osaka.
The Twilight Express Mizukaze entered service on 17 June 2017. Operated by JR West, it is the third of Japan’s luxury cruise trains, after the Seven Stars in Kyushu of 2013 and the Train Suite Shiki-shima, which JR East launched six weeks earlier.
The train
The Mizukaze has ten cars and carries 34 passengers. It takes its name and its dark green livery from the Twilight Express, the sleeper that ran between Osaka and Sapporo until 2015 and had a devoted following. The exterior is by industrial designer Tetsuo Fukuda and the interiors by architect Kazuya Ura, in a style the railway describes as nostalgic modern, with Art Deco lines, wood panelling and craft objects from the regions the train passes through.
There are six sleeping cars. Five hold twin or single rooms. The sixth contains a single suite that occupies the entire carriage, with a living room, a bedroom, a bathtub and a private balcony; it was the most spacious accommodation on any train in Japan at the time. A dining car, a lounge car and observation cars at each end, with open decks, complete the set.
The routes
The train runs from Kyoto and Osaka to Shimonoseki, at the western tip of Honshu, and back. One-night courses follow either the San’yo line along the Seto Inland Sea, by way of Kurashiki, Onomichi and Miyajima, or the San’in line along the Sea of Japan, through Kinosaki, the Tottori coast and Izumo. A two-night course links the two into a loop. Each day includes an excursion off the train, and the San’in line in particular shows a rural coast that few foreign visitors reach.
The food
Menus were planned under the direction of the food writer Takeshi Kadokami, with dishes by Yoshihiro Murata of the Kyoto kaiseki restaurant Kikunoi and Hajime Yoneda of the Osaka restaurant Hajime, both holders of three Michelin stars.
Booking
As with Japan’s other cruise trains, places are sold by application for each season rather than by open booking, and demand in the first years was many times the number of berths. Travellers from abroad usually book through an agent that holds an allocation.
The San’in route passes Kinosaki, where an overnight stop is worth planning separately: see bath-hopping through Kinosaki Onsen.