I used to love Tonomi Station because it was old, a little bit ramshackle, but it was how it had always been, and it was wonderful. But a few years ago, the station building was completely rebuilt. It’s very bright and airy, and really it is a much nicer building, but it’s much simpler and it lacks the rundown, old-fashioned charm of the original station building.

And then on platform three (which is actually the only other platform) there used to be a big wooden shelter, almost as big as a barn in a way, with seats inside it, but now that’s gone completely, and all that’s left is just three rows of seats out in the open on the platform, which is fair enough, but if it’s raining, you can’t use them at all. At least on platform one, there is the station building which provides shelter. It’s progress in one way, I suppose, but, in another way, very much not so. Sometimes with the JR Sanyo Line west of Iwakuni, I get the feeling that for the lesser stations, it really is a case of managed decline. I very much hope that I’m wrong.

For a few years now, JR West seems to have been into ‘character’ Shinkansen: Shinkansen trains in a livery that evokes the character in question.
The first of these was the Evangelion 500-series Shinkansen (still the best, in my opinion), and then came the Hello Kitty Shinkansen (which is great if you like kawaii).
And now there’s a third ‘character’ Shinkansen: the ONE PIECE train. Actually, there are going to be three of these ONE PIECE Shinkansen, unveiled roughly one month apart. Only the first train, in the ‘Setouchi Blue’ livery, is running yet. The remaining two trains are due to be unveiled in May and June respectively.
The Setouchi Blue train makes one round trip between Hakata and Shin-Osaka a day (at present), and it’s quite striking. If you’re waiting for a Shinkansen somewhere between Hakata and Shin-Osaka, keep an eye out for this train!