Canard's "Trains of Japan" Thread

[Canard]

I'm in Japan right now, riding my brains out on trains for a couple of weeks.  I thought I'd share a couple of photos so far:

   
A Tokyo Monorail 1000-series glides toward Haneda Airport, heading for Hamamatsuchō.

   
A pair of Kawasaki Heavy Industries E321-500 series trains meet while racing along the loop around Tokyo, the Yamanote Line. This is my favourite of the "above ground" commuter rail trains in the Tokyo area so far.

   
The Nippori-Toneri Liner is typical of the Japanese AGT (Automated Guideway Transit) systems, which are built to a standard guideway size and ride on rubber tires. Most of them, including this one, are automated - which means you can sit in the front seat and pretend you're driving!

   
I was lucky enough to stumble across one of just two of the new 2200-series trains on the New Shuttle, another AGT system which links Omiya in the Northern reaches of Tokyo. This system is integrated into the massive guideway structure for the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen (bullet train) lines, which you can see overhead/to the left in this photo.

   
Not a train: I spotted this adorable bird at Tobu Zoo, nibbling away on the cherry blossom flowers.

Yesterday, the friend I'm here with in Japan asked me what had surprised me most so far about the country. Since I've studied the country so much (admittedly, mostly through YouTube train videos), I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. But a couple of things have stood out, so far:

• The quiet. And when I say quiet, I mean quiet. When walking along the streets of Downtown Tokyo at rush hour, I noticed a digital sign with two dB reading on a temporary construction fence - I think one was for sound inside the construction zone, and the other was ambient background noise outside. They were like 30 and 55. To put this into perspective, Industrial Noise Control describes 60 dB as "Conversation in restaurant, office, background music, Air conditioning unit at 100 feet." When you're on a very crowded train, everyone's phone is off (set to "Manners Mode"), nobody says anything at all, and when the trains pull into stations and the doors open, it's just absolutely perfectly silent. I'd read that westerners will find that they'll often suddenly realize just how loud they are, but this was beyond what even I had expected.
  
  
• The politeness. Japanese politeness is legendary. But a couple of examples stick out in my mind: The panic attack we caused two older women to have when we offered our seats on a semi-crowded train. They absolutely weren't having it - "How could we possibly trouble two westerners out of their seats?!" They smiled politely and (very quietly!) said a few rushed words before very reluctantly sitting down and hyperventilating and having a rushed, whispered conversation while totally blushing and covering their faces. Later; when exiting a train on a very busy platform in the height of morning rush-hour, the crowd going up the stairs formed perfectly, and without instruction, into three lines. I looked up and saw that the staircase narrowed to single file further up. At the merge point, people were taking turns, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, and everyone was doing a little half bow out of respect for the person who just let them through. At another station last night, my friend said "Did you just catch what happened?" I had seen two people having a semi-awkward conversation but I thought maybe they were coworkers saying goodbye or something. It turns out that as they were queuing up on the train platform in front of where the doors on the train would be, the man and woman were insisting "No, you go first, please" - Jeff counted no less than 7 bows before one of them finally succeeded and took their place in line. In a store, I went to buy a T-shirt and the cashier didn't speak any English. Not really a huge deal, but when he saw what shirt I was getting, he got all flushed and tried to indicate "just one moment please" and got his supervisor. They had a quick conversation and they reached under the desk and started sifting through some bags of LEGO. The supervisor explained "If you buy a little bit more, you can have this gift" - the little LEGO set. At SEGA Joypolis, an indoor theme park/entertainment complex on Odaiba, an employee came running over to us when we were buying our tickets at an automated machine to make sure we knew we'd get almost half-off admission if we had foreign passports. Like these folks go out of their way to make sure we are getting the best deal or everything we're entitled to with their offers and so on.
  
  
• the BREAD! When my husband told me before I left to "get ready for no dairy and cheese for 2 weeks", I think I just wrote off all foods that I enjoy entirely. But, much to my surprise, just like in Denmark, pastry shops are abundant and lavish. In fact, lunch yesterday consisted entirely of a tray of various pastries and baked goods.
  
  
• The trains. So, I knew there were trains everywhere. But I don't think I realized just how all-encompassing everywhere really is. When riding the Yamanote line you can look on either side of the train and there's a good chance there's at least 1 more train going the same direction as you. I think of Japan like I think of a huge skyscraper - where there are more elevators per floor than there is usable space. I think trains are like the elevators - that there are more trains in Japan, than there is Japan!
  

Every couple of days I'll try and sift through my photos and post some of my favourites.