A thread titled “I wanted to travel all over Japan in the Japan National Railways (JNR) era” popped up on 5ch’s Hello! Project board, where veteran railway fans traded memories of those days. At its peak, JNR’s network spanned roughly 20,000 km of track, and under the catchphrase “Great Journey: 20,000 Km Challenge,” a whole style of travel grew up around trying to ride every single line. The thread ranged from the growing number of fans who never got to experience a sleeper train or a dining car, to nostalgia for the express trains and local lines that vanished around privatization, all the way to present-day gripes that the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension and the revised Seishun 18 Ticket rules have made using conventional lines even more of a hassle.
What people said
1AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:26
Getting to ride the Hokutosei sleeper during my loop around Hokkaido was the one saving grace.
My parents were from the Niigata countryside, but we weren't well-off when I was a kid — couldn't even snag reserved seats, let alone set foot in the dining car.
2AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:34
I wanted to ride a Series 583.
38AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:14
Re: #2
>Series 583
I rode one, but only a daytime run.
3AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:34
Gotta conquer all ~20,000 km of the old JNR network before it's all abandoned.
5AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:38
Apparently more and more people have never ridden a sleeper train — how come?
6AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:39
There are people who've never eaten in a dining car either, you know.
7AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:39
I remember the catchphrase being "Great Journey: 20,000 Km Challenge."
8AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:42
The snack lounge on the Joetsu/Tohoku Shinkansen lasted until the Heisei era — commuting home was brutal, so I rode it a lot just between Tokyo and Omiya.
10AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:43
Using an old Shinkaisoku (rapid service) train as a sleeper limited express feels like it's missing the point somehow.
11AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:44
Shunzo Miyawaki's railway travel essays are great, aren't they?
12AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:44
I rode every JNR line in the early JR years, but the local dead-end branch lines I went through so much trouble to ride ended up getting scrapped anyway — feels like a waste now.
14AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:47
At Niconico Chōkaigi they ran a Series 583 sleeper out of Osaka, I remember that.
15AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:48
A lot of people used to say "we've got cars now, who needs trains," so I guess this was inevitable.
18AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:49
Re: #15
Nowadays it's "I drive myself so I don't use trains, but don't you dare shut the railway down!"
19AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:50
A classmate's family home was in Suzu, Noto — just hearing about it made me jealous.
20AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:50
JNR's total track length was about 20,000 km. Just a bit of trivia.
24AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:53
Re: #20
Already been said.
You're the fifth person to post that.
22AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:52
Tokyo → Seikan ferry → Hokkaido → Wakkanai → Chihaku ferry → Sakhalin → trains across Sakhalin.
27AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:55
I wanted to ride the San'in Line's Train 724 the whole way from Moji to Fukuchiyama.
28AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:55
Around 2002 I took the overnight train from Abashiri to Sapporo, but the diesel engine's roar kept me from sleeping a wink.
There was a sleeper car attached, but you couldn't use it with a rail pass.
Got into Sapporo at 5am and bought a MANZOKU rice ball at the kiosk.
39AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:18
Re: #28
Back at the end of last century I slept on that same train every night using an excursion pass — somewhere around Wakkanai, Kushiro, or Abashiri.
30AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:57
I sometimes ride the Hachiko Line (the Hachioji–Takasaki line) up to Takasaki and back.
Whenever I go to Hachioji Olympus Hall it makes me want to hop on it.
31AnonymousOct 5, 2026 21:57
I've ridden every line in Japan, and every time a new one opens I go ride it for the first time.
Next up is the Okayama Electric Tramway next March.
Since I'm a Mikumiku otaku (a Hatsune Miku fan), I'm planning to hunt down spots connected to her while I'm there.
When the Hokuriku Shinkansen extended to Tsuruga, I got off at Kaga-Onsen Station and ran into a familiar Hello! Project otaku, of all people.
Found out later there'd been an event out front the station with Natsuki Hime appearing.
32AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:01
The Niseko express — Trains 1 and 2 were popular for being pulled by the C62-class locomotive, especially unit No. 2, which kept its "Tsubame" livery.
Train 4 (KiHa 56), running Nemuro to Hakodate, was a genuine east-west crossing of Hokkaido.
33AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:06
Lines where the old-style passenger coaches (kyūkyaku) were still hanging in there were a lot of fun.
And for EMUs, nothing beats a tsurikake (axle-hung motor) drive.
34AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:08
Got a shot in Sapporo of the Hokutosei being hauled by a pair of blue DD51 locomotives.
35AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:08
It left its mark in both Hokkaido (Asahikawa) and Kyushu (Kagoshima) — KuHa 481-1508.
Now it's resting in Niigata.
36AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:10
I loved those round buttons on the ticket machines with the fares printed right on them.
40AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:20
I wanted to cross the old Amarube bridge back in the day too.
Had the free time, just not the money.
If I'd known a few years sooner that even a middle-aged guy could use the Seishun 18 Ticket, I'd have gone traveling.
56AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:53
Re: #40
The scenery's great, but you can't actually see the bridge itself from the train.
41AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:21
Back when I was a student I slept on trains plenty of times — and in stations too, come to think of it.
42AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:33
Back when the JNR Nibori ferry route existed, you could plan a whole loop trip without ever doubling back.
43AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:35
With public transit in tatters these days, that all sounds like ancient history.
44AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:35
Even a current Matsuyama City Hall employee today had never heard of the Nibori ferry route lol
Re: #45
If the Kōhin-Hokusen and Kōhin-Nansen lines, and the Hidaka Main Line and Hiroo Line, had ever been connected, you'd have had one grand round-Hokkaido route.
46AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:38
Back in elementary school I feel like I saw ads for "Great Journey: 20,000 Km Challenge!" plastered all over magazines.
Even the manga Dokaben had something called "Blue Train Academy" in it.
47AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:42
Right around when I was finally old enough to travel freely on my own, JNR went and got privatized.
Still wore out the Seishun 18 Ticket anyway, though.
48AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:44
Re: #47
And now that same 18 Ticket's been hit with a terrible revision too.
49AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:45
Nobuhiko Obayashi's film Haishi ("The Deserted City") has rare footage of Chikugo-Yanagawa Station on the JNR Saga Line not long before it was shut down.
The Chikugogawa Shōkōbashi — the JNR Saga Line's lift bridge where the track itself rises up like an elevator — is now a walking path you can cross on foot.
Ask the staff nicely and they'll even raise it for you.
51AnonymousOct 5, 2026 22:47
Even before that, the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension tore the conventional lines to shreds.
If things get made worse still, you won't even have options left to choose between.
All that's left is "well, it's a bit cheaper, so I guess I'll use it" when heading out somewhere far.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
“Great Journey: 20,000 Km Challenge” was a catchphrase referring to the roughly 20,000 km of track JNR operated at its peak, and at the time, riding every single line was talked up as a goal for railway fans. In the thread, that figure gets cited again and again, and the conversation centers on nostalgia for the trains, services, and rolling stock — sleeper cars, dining cars, express-type diesel railcars — that disappeared around the time of privatization. Where opinion split was over a jab aimed at “the generation that used to say cars made trains unnecessary,” with some pointing out that the old push for efficiency leads in a straight line to today’s complaints about line closures and service cuts. One point readers could easily get wrong is the Amarube story: the current Amarube Bridge is a concrete structure rebuilt in 2010, so from today’s train windows you can no longer actually see the famous old steel trestle itself. Also, since 2024 the rules around the Seishun 18 Ticket’s valid days and split usage have changed, and the thread’s complaints are grounded in that real policy change.
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