Scenic route
Tsugaru Stove Train
Tsugaru-Goshogawara → Tsugaru-Nakasato · Japan
- Distance
- 21 km
- Fastest time
- 45 min
- Top speed
- 70 km/h
- Operator
- Tsugaru Railway
- Train
- 1948 Ohafu 33 coaches with coal daruma stoves, DD350 diesel
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 1930
- Runs
- 12× daily; stove train 2–3× daily Dec–Mar
Aboard Japan’s northernmost private railway, attendants grill squid on pot-belly coal stoves while blizzards bury the Tsugaru plain outside.
Japan’s northernmost private railway crosses the snowbound Tsugaru plain to the hometown of novelist Dazai Osamu, and each winter it adds 1948-vintage coaches warmed by coal-burning daruma stoves. Attendants fan the coals and grill dried squid over them while ground blizzards whip off the Sea of Japan. The stove tradition is as old as the line itself, which opened in 1930.
Along the way
- Snow-buried apple orchards
- Kanagi and the Dazai Osamu museum
- Ashino Park’s lakeside cherry trees
- Squid grilled on the daruma stove
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More train routes in Japan.