SL Yamaguchi, pulled by D51200, crosses the Tsuwano River
How does this sound for a travelogue- Japan on the Go: How the Hell Does a Country the Size of California Have So Many Transportation Museums?! It will be 500+ pages long and be nothing but preserved trains and museums related to trains and trams. Japan loves trains. While the diehard otaku are a subset, it’s normal to see everyone from different walks of life, including groups of septuagenarian women with cameras and young girls with selfie sticks, showing up at a train station just to see a special train pull in.
These can be themed bullet trains with cartoon characters on the side, novelty trains like a model booze cruiser or nostalgia trains that let you ride the rails the way your grandparents did- on a steam engine.
SL Yamaguchi
The term “SL” means “Steam Locomotive,” and it denotes the train as a whole and not the steam engine itself. So some SL have different steam engines that rotate making runs, giving passengers reasons to come back a second time just to say they can feel the slight difference between a train pulled by a D51 and a C57. Sounds like I’m making it up? You’ll have to ride both to call me out, won’t you?
While this list is subject to change and the whims of old machinery, there are currently about a dozen steam trains running throughout Japan, almost all of which were in operation prior to 1945 or are of wartime classes. Services start and stop without English-language warning so before adding a certain train to your itinerary its best to make sure it’s still running. Almost all run seasonally and on certain days, like weekends and holidays but are subject to periodic stops in service.
Please remember when riding steam engines that its common courtesy to wave back at everyone who stops to wave at the train as it passes. This will include every single person that you pass- people walking, people driving, white water rafters shaking paddles (I’m being serious.) and the rail photographers who are following your train and setting up just ahead of your current position for better shots. This is called “tewofu-rail” and you’re a horrible person if you don’t wave back.
SL Hitoyoshi
8620-class Engine No. 58654 (1922)
Kumamoto Station – Hitoyoshi Station (Kumamoto Prefecture)
http://www.jrkyushu.co.jp/english/train/sl.html
SL Hitoyoshi’s 8620-class engine is the oldest steam engine running on a Japanese mainline today. It pulls a sightseeing train designed around railway nostalgia through some of Japan’s most beautiful mountains. For a visual, if Shizuoka has the Japanese Highlands and Nagano has the Japanese Alps then Kumamoto has the Japanese Appalachians. Along the way it stops at two small stations that are more than 100 years old that passengers can look around before the conductor rings a large hand bell to let them know it’s time to get back onboard. There’s a turntable at Hitoyoshi Station used to re-orient the train for its return leg which is beside the oldest stone engine shed in Japan. (You can read about my trip on it here.)
58654 on Hitoyoshi Station turntable
SL Yamaguchi
C57-class Engine No. 1(1937)
D51-class Engine No. 200 (1938)
Shin-Yamaguchi Station – Tsuwano Station (Yamaguchi Prefecture)
www.c571.jp
Whichever engine you get, it’s a classic. The D51 or “Degoichi” (D51 in Japanese) was a workhorse and is synonymous with steam engines in Japan. The train pulls five reproduction vintage cars based on those built in 1927 and the 1930s. The train takes passengers to Tsuwano, a traditional Japanese castle town away from the big cities. The train turntable is at Tsuwano Station. (You can read bout my trip on it here.)
D51200 approaches the Tsuwano Station turntable
SL Oigawa
C10-class Engine No. 8 (1930)
C11-class Engine No. 190 (1940)
C11-class Engine No. 227 (1942)
C12-class Engine No. 164 (1937)
C56-class Engine No. 44 (1936)
Shin-Kanaya Station – Senzu Station (Shizuoka Prefecture)
http://oigawa-railway.co.jp/en/sl.html
This train rides through the Oigawa River Valley and stops at three old-fashioned stations along the way. All cars are kept as they were in the 1930s and 1940s. The English language Oigawa website states 1950s, the Japanese version says Showa 10s-20s. Senzu Station has a small attached steam train museum and a turntable.
Unlike the other sightseeing steam locomotives on this list, SL Oigawa runs daily regardless of time of year. The five engines probably have something to do with it. (We rode SL Oigawa and compared it to SL Hitoyoshi and SL Yamaguchi to see which is the greatest SL in Japan here.)
SL Gunma Minakami / SL Gunma Yokokawa
C61-class Engine No. 20 (1949)
D51-class Engine No. 498 (1940)
Minakami Station – Takasaki Station / Takasaki Station – Yokokawa Station (Gunma Prefecture)
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/joyful/c61.html
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/joyful/d51.html
This is slightly confusing, but this is one line that operates in two legs, Yokokawa and Minakami. Minakami is pulled by the C61 and Yokokawa by the D51. This trains pulls vintage post-war (1950s-1970s) cars. Yokokawa Station has a railway heritage park with displayed trains and a shed. Minakami Station has the turntable.
SL Paleo Express
C58-class Engine No. 363 (1944)
Kumagawa Station – Mitsumineguchi Station (Saitama Prefecture)
https://www.chichibu-railway.co.jp/en/
This is the closest SL to Tokyo. Mitsumineguchi Station has the turntable.
SL Ginga / Galaxy
C58-class Engine No. 239 (1940)
Kamaishi Station – Hanamaki Station (Iwata Prefecture)
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/joyful/galaxysl.html
The train pulls stylish cars with a very early 20th century/astrological (Astro-steam-punk?) aesthetic and even has a planetarium car to go with the ‘galaxy’ theme. Kamaishi Station has the turntable.
SL Banetsu Monogatari
C57-class Engine No. 180 (1946)
Niitsu Station – Aizu-Wakamatsu Station (Niigata & Fukushima Prefectures)
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/joyful/c57.html
If SL Yamaguchi is the “Lady” this train tries to one up it by being the “Noble Lady” (Kifujin). The Noble Lady pulls a very kid-friendly train complete with playground but the observation car has an early 20th century aesthetic. Both end stations have turntables.
SL Moka
C12-class Engine No. 66 (1933)
C11-class Engine No. 325 (1946)
Moka Station – Shimodate Station (Tochigi & Ibaraki Prefectures)
http://www.moka-railway.co.jp/index.php (Japanese only)
There’s little to say about this train, Moka Station has a train museum.
SL Fuyu-no-Shitsugen
C11-class Engine No. 171 (1940)
Kushiro Station – Shibecha Station
http://www2.jrhokkaido.co.jp/global/english/train/guide/sl.html
This train only runs in the winter through the Kushiro Wetlands when the sight of a black engine cutting through white snow is most dramatic. The cars are retro style.
8630 at the Kyoto Train Museum; this 8620-class passenger steam engine was built in 1914.
Operational Museum Trains
I’m not going to get into display trains, because as previously mentioned that requires a second book, but there are active steam locomotives at the Kyoto Railway Museum and Meiji-mura.
Kyoto Railway Museum operates a century-old 8620-class engine, like SL Hitoyoshi, like a novelty act at a theme park. The train has a few open-sided cars which it slowly backs down a kilometer of track before slowly pulling forward back to the museum depot as shinkansens fly by you on the regular track about every ten minutes. The depot itself is the former Umekoji Railway Deport, which was built in 1914 and is the oldest reinforced concrete railyard in Japan. While not guaranteed, visitors may see other vintage rolling stock being put through its paces on the museum’s tracks beside the railyard. I watched D51 200, now one of the two SL Yamaguchi engines, run multiple times during my visit.
Meiji-mura’s American-built No. 9
Meiji-mura offers two varieties of railway, electric and steam. Kyoto began operating trams in 1895, making it the oldest tram system in the country, and Meiji-mura’s Kyoto trams were built around 1910 and operated until 1961. It has 700 meters of tram line that runs through the forested Victorian village before stopping right by the train station, with train and trams timed so that visitors can quickly get off one and hop on the other.
Meiji-mura’s Kyoto Tram No. 1
Meiji-mura has two different steam engines, both of which had long service lives. The oldest is the British Sharps No. 12, which was built in 1874 and was in regular operation until 1965. The other is an American Baldwin Locomotive Works engine built in 1912, it was transferred to Meiji-mura in 1973. The third class passenger coaches the engine pulls were built in 1908 and 1912, restored to their original specifications.
As a bonus, stick around when the train pulls into “Tokyo” station, the engine is disconnected and goes onto a small manually-operated turn table to get re-oriented for the return leg.
It runs 800 meters through forested hills overlooking the picturesque village. I am not usually fond of such flowery language but it’s a nostalgic train running at a nostalgic village beside a clear blue lake. That’s about the only right way to describe the setting.
There are a few other SLs that may or may not be in operation, but since I could not find current reliable information on them I have not included them on this list.
All Aboard! (SL Yamaguchi at Tsuwano Station)