East Japan Railway Co.'s new luxury sleeper train debuted Monday, starting a four-day trip covering Hokkaido and parts of northeastern Japan in offering passengers a cruise experience with a modern Japanese taste.
The champagne-gold-colored "Train Suite Shiki-shima" carrying 33 passengers departed Ueno Station in Tokyo in the morning as JR East President Tetsuro Tomita and its designer Ken Kiyoyuki Okuyama joined a ceremony celebrating its departure.
"We hope to create a new railway history and breathe life into rural areas," said Tomita.
The fees for the latest trip range from 740,000 yen ($6,600) to 950,000 yen per person when two people share a room. A lottery for reserving the largest Shiki-shima suite on the service launch day was oversubscribed 76-fold, according to the train operator.
Train services through March 2018, including shorter trips, are already reserved.
The 10-car train, operated by the company serving Tokyo and other areas in the eastern part of Japan's main island, will make a stop at Nikko station to allow the passengers to visit the Nikko Toshogu shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Tochigi Prefecture, before heading for Hakodate and Noboribetsu in the northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido.
The passengers will then divide into two groups -- one taking a local resort train in Aomori Prefecture and another visiting the Sannai-Maruyama site featuring the remains of settlements about 4,000 to 5,500 years ago -- and return to Ueno on the sleeper train on Thursday.
While sleeper trains as a means to get to destinations are disappearing in Japan, luxury cruise trains, such as the Seven Stars, a service offered by Kyushu Railway Co. on the main island of Kyushu since 2013, have been gaining popularity in recent years.
West Japan Railway Co., which serves Osaka and other areas in the western part of the main island, will launch its version of the luxury sleeper train called Twilight Express Mizukaze in June. 
