Japan to roll out first bullet train with foot spas

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Written by Nell Alcantara

On 19 July 2014, JR East will launch Japan’s first bullet train with onboard foot spas.

On 19 July 2014, JR East will launch Japan’s first bullet train with onboard foot spas. The bullet train, named Toreiyu – a combination of the English word “train”, the French “soleil” and “yu”, the Japanese word for hot water –will have one car with two 2.4-metre-long foot spa tubs facing windows and also a car with a bar counter and tatami-mat flooring with tables made from cherrywood.

Toreiyu will run on weekends on the Yamagata Shinkansen Line between Fukushima city, capital of Fukushima Prefecture, and Shinjo, Yamagata Prefecture, roughly a two-hour journey. It is part of a campaign to promote tourism in Yamagata, a farming area known for rice, beef, cherries and pears. According to JR East, the ceiling and the back of the passenger seats will be decorated with reliefs of cherries, a specialty Japanese people firmly associate with Yamagata Prefecture.

The train has been redesigned from the E3-series bullet train, which is retiring from the Akita bullet train, and can carry up to 143 passengers. Famed car designer Ken Okuyama, who was born in Yamagata, designed these new bullet trains. Okuyama is perhaps best known for designing the Enzo Ferrari.

Soaking in hot water is a ritualised and extremely popular leisure activity in Japan. The footbaths are intended for passengers to relax with, rather than to clean their feet. Each footbath can be used by four people at once and the tubs are built on a raised stone platform, so passengers can easily take in the scenery rolling by outside the windows. 

Tickets for Toreiyu are expected to go on sale later this month. Initially only a summer schedule for July – 30 September 2014 will be announced.

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