Day in Tokyo. Advice for an out and back Shinkansen please?

[Morpethcurve]

Enroute to Aus via Tokyo in a couple of days and thought we'd delay the onward flight so as to ride a bullet. This is a short notice trip (former airline staff, using risky standby tickets so we can make impulsive decisions like this) so no research has been achieved.

Flights arrive and depart from Haneda airport, so close to city centre.

What I would really be grateful for is pointers to which railway stations the Shinkansen depart from, and recommendations for a scenic return trip which, of course, achieves maximum velocity.

Are they less busy outside morning/evening rush hours?

Any scraps of advice would be eagerly devoured. I'm sure some of the readership has been and done it.

Many Thanks

 

[tram21]

It would be expensive but the classic trip is Tokyo to Osaka on the Narita Nozomi express train. Because it's so fast its a very long way but around 2 hours each way, and you could have a short time in Osaka as well in between trains. I'm not too sure about other routes, so hopefully others can give other suggestions.

 

[tbwbear]

You don't say how long your stay in Tokyo is, but the most straightforward trip is to go from Haneda to Shinagawa station on the Keikyu line. That takes about 30 minutes or less.

Then change at Shinagawa....

Shinagawa is the first stop out of Tokyo on the Tokaido Shinkansen - the original bullet train route opened in 1964 - that runs to Shin Osaka via Nagoya and Kyoto.

All trains stop at Shinagawa a few minutes after they have left Tokyo outbound - or a few minutes before they arrive at Tokyo inbound.

The timetable is here.....

Timetable

Check the timetable of our trains covering across central Japan area. Read the latest travel and transportation information on the official website of Central Japan Railway and be ready for your visitation to Japan.

global.jr-central.co.jp

Depending on how much time you have to go out and back from Shinagawa - possible trips are to Atami (40 minutes one way) Nagoya (less than 2hrs) or Kyoto (around 2hours)


You do not need a reserved ticket to ride the trains - There are non-reserved cars and reserved cars. You can stand in the non-reserved cars if all seats are taken.

There are three types of service - they are all operated by the same basic 16-car train type and differ only on stopping pattern and number of reserved / non reserved cars.

1) Nozomi (fewest stops but with relatively few non-reserved seat cars - 3 out of 16 and always at the front leaving Tokyo )
2) Hikari (a few more stops but with more non reserved cars)
3) Kodama (all stations service - lots of non reserved cars)

The trains on this line run up to 285km/h (177mph) but you will have to go beyond Shin Yokohama to experience that speed.

There are trains that run north from Tokyo that reach 320km/h (200mph) towards Sendai if you are only interested in top speed, but some are reservation only. Tokyo Station can easily be acccessed by changing at Shinagawa and taking the Yamanote Loop line to Tokyo first.

Personally, if you have enough time, (7 or 8 hours maybe) I would go to Kyoto and back. You can even see one of the temples closest to the station.

 

[stuu]

It would be expensive but the classic trip is Tokyo to Osaka on the Narita express train. Because it's so fast its a very long way but around 2 hours each way, and you could have a short time in Osaka as well in between trains. I'm not too sure about other routes, so hopefully others can give other suggestions.

Nozomi surely?

Shizuoka would be my choice, it's about an hour and you get the classic view of Mt Fuji, as long as the weather behaves. And you can stand at the station and watch trains fly through every few minutes

 

[tbwbear]

Nozomi surely?

Shizuoka would be my choice, it's about an hour and you get the classic view of Mt Fuji, as long as the weather behaves. And you can stand at the station and watch trains fly through every few minutes

Yes, Nozomi.

Shizuoka is a good choice - although none of the Nozomi trains stop there, but some of the Hikari trains do.

The Hikari (which leaves Shinagawa generally every 30 minutes throughout the day) is a good compromise. It stops less than the Kodama but it is easier to get a seat than the Nozomi.

All the different types of service use the same basic type of train - so the actual on board experience is the same.

There is a bit more information on the journey here on my blog -

2024 – Japan – “Bullet at 60”

Visiting all the original stations on the Tokaido Shinkansen

trainstobeyond.com

 

[tram21]

Nozomi surely?

Thank you, corrected!

 

[Morpethcurve]

Follow-up:- filled with confidence based on the information in your posts, we headed from the airport (Haneda, the closer to Tokyo of the two) to Shinagawa and got a Shinkansen to Shin-Osaka. We did a couple of round trips back to Kyoto, one so I could visit the railway museum which is very good indeed although all info boards are in Japanese.

Decades since my only other visit to Japan, and in comparison there is sufficient signage in English to get by, and enough English is spoken by the polite and friendly Japanese, especially in tourist-facing situations. Local train ticket machines only accept cash. For others doing the trip - we found APA Hotels good value. Rooms like a ship's cabin, but clean, well equipped and quiet. They are in booking.com, trivago etc. etc. and are all over the place - typically three or four within a half mile of a tube station. Twice we went to the wrong one because the addresses were so similar.

Thanks again for the responses to my original post.

 

[Acfb]

I would have suggested Nagoya for a day trip as it is only 1.5 hours on the Shinkansen and then you could have done a couple of things such as Nagoya Castle, Aichi Prefectural Art Museum, Nagoya Science Museum or SCMaglev and Railway Park (with Shinkansen/Maglev exhibits) the latter of which I haven't been to yet. I feel there is far too much to do in/around Kyoto to just go for the day although I haven't been to the Kyoto Railway Museum yet.

 

[tram21]

the Kyoto Railway Museum

Its absolutely incredible- you can definitely spend a whole day there, although English is fairly limited. Its all very very interactive though so language is no barrier.