Japan: Hamanasu night express train service status
I'm a little confused with this. I know it will be discontinued in 2016 after Shinkansen arrives to Hokkaido but I'm not sure if it's running now or not, and if so, how reliably it's running.
JR Hokkaido has a pdf about Tokyo-Sapporo routes that mentions the Hamanasu but I'm not sure how to read that, is it running only 3 days in October ? (Can't copy paste from the pdf)
Hyperdia doesn't list it as an option. (I've even tried explicitly between Aomori and Sapporo, but then again it doesn't list Cassiopeia either)
JPRail however, says that it does and the impression I get is that it's more frequent than the JR PDF suggests. (Article dated Aug 2015)
Best Answer
According to the PDF:
- express trains Hakucho no. 71, Hakucho 77, Hakucho 78, and Hakucho 78 run only on specified days (weekends and long weekends), while other Hakucho trains, like no. 22 or 90, operating at different hours run daily)
- night sleeper Cassiopeia runs only on days specified on the last page
- night express Hamanasu (column "3") runs between Aomori and Sapporo daily
PDF does not mention New Year period as it shows only schedule until Nov 30th.
PDF also does not mention shorter stop in Aomori until Sep 30th. I checked current schedule and it shows 6:19 arrival today, so it seems PDF is accurate.
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