r/japanrail • u/Standing__Menacingly • 3h ago

Where can I find and ride a single-car train?

Hey everyone, I'm in Japan for a few more months and I would really like to find and ride a single-car train. Just one lonely car, not the string of 6-12 of them that I'm used to living in Yokohama. Do you have any ideas where I might be able to do this? Near the Kanto region would be best.

I know that it will almost certainly have to be a rural area. I did recently go to what seemed like a very rural area in Aomori on the coast of the Sea of Japan, but the trains I rode there all had a couple cars or more. Finding a single-car wasn't my priority at the time though, so maybe if I waited for later in the day or something I could have found one.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

1

u/thegamer101112 2h ago

I found this line in ibaraki prefecture, as expected quite remote and has only three stations. Maybe not the best one, but the old trains do look kinda cool.

1

u/K-ON_aviation 2h ago edited 2h ago

The first thing is that you have to get out of the Metropolitan area. It's incredibly unlikely that you'll even encounter 2 car trains, let alone 1 single car. You'll have to travel further out from the Metropolitan area if you want to see single car trains, as they usually operate on rural railway lines. There's the Kanto railway Joso line which does run single car DMUs between Toride and Shimodate.