Rebuilding Northern Japan, One Station at a Time

Unlike any other country I have had the privilege to visit, Japan as a nation lives and breathes by their unrivaled train system.  It really is amazing to watch the precision of the Japanese trains, where delays of even one minute can start to make some people uncomfortable.  You can set your watch by the trains, and it is a very dependable means of getting around, either for business or for pleasure.

When I first started visiting Japan in 1994, I always took the Limousine Bus from Narita to my hotel in Tokyo.  I think this was just out of American habit, and I guess also because most people felt it was easier.  After a year or two, I tried using my now favorite train (inbound only, NOT outbound), the Narita Express  to see the difference.  I have stayed with this beautiful train ever since.  More reliable, no traffic jams, and more comfortable.  Oh did I mention you can also purchase a beer on it too if you are thirsty?  It helps if your hotel is very close to a station, which mine has usually been.

When I watch the rebuilding going on in Japan, I am gauging a big part of it on the resumption of train services.  Tokyo was able to cover their brief period of train outages very quickly (a must of course).  Other areas in the north have been slower to restart.  So it is with great pleasure that I saw the other day that Narita Express service, suspended after the March 11th earthquake, has been resumed.  This will make it easier for Narita travellers to get to and from the capital city.  In addition to this, the Tohoku Shinkansen is slowly rebuilding their services north.  At the moment, you can get from Tokyo to Fukushima.  On Monday, the line will reopen to Sendai.  By April 30th, it will be completely connected, and you can take it all the way to Shin-Aomori on the northern tip of Honshu.  This is fantastic news and a great sign of recovery in the north.

Our Senseki Line Train at Matsushima-Kaigan in Nov 2010

The good news does not stop there.  For my friends  in Tagajo, the local Senseki Line is a critical people mover.  It reopened service a few weeks ago from Sendai eastward to Kozuru Shinden.  Today, April 19th (in Japan), the line is now open all the way out to Higashi-Shiogama.  This may seem like a trivial thing, but in this area, it is a fantastic piece of news.  I congratulate JR East for their hard work in reopening all these lines, and hope they are able to continue with this fantastic pace of reconstruction!!!