Tokyo train little luxury showdown – Green Car vs. Kaiji, which is more comfortable?

The answer might depend on what kind of drink you reach for after a long day at the office.

Last month East Japan Railway Company/JR East introduced Green Cars on its Chuo Rapid and Ome Line trains that connect downtown Tokyo with residential clusters to the west of the city center. Essentially first-class cars with comfier chairs, extra legroom, and amenities such as fold-down seatback trays, Green Cars are usually found on longer-haul trains like the Shinkansen, so adding them to two line primarily used for daily commuting is an unexpected bit of luxury and comfort for those willing to pay the additional charge for Green Car seats.

However, JR East also operates special limited express trains on the Chuo Line, where all seats are reserved and nicer than what you’ll find in standard-class commuter train carriages. So now with two different premium-style train travel options, which is better?

To find out, we sent out Japanese-language reporter Ahiruneko to ride both a regular Chuo Line train’s Green Car and the Chuo Line special limited express called the Kaiji. To eliminate as many other variables as possible, he started both trips at Shinjuku Station and took trains headed out of downtown to the west, riding until Tachikawa Station. He even matched the departure times as closely as he could, starting his Green Car ride at 4:16 p.m. one day, and taking the 4:30 Kaiji the next day.

▼ Green Cars can be identified by their clover-like emblem near the door.

Starting with the Green Car, this actually isn’t Ahiruneko’s first time to check one out on the Chuo Line, but for the sake of making the most direct comparison possible, a repeat ride was in order. Ordinarily there’s an additional 1,010-yen (US$6.90) surcharge on top of the base ticket price for Green Car rides of 50 kilometers 31 miles) or less, but by using JR East’s Suica mobile ticketing app you can cut the extra fee down to 750 yen, which is what Ahiruneko did.

The Chuo Line Green Cars have a double-decker layout. Exact seats aren’t reserved, so Ahiruneko was free to step on up to the top level…

…which was almost completely empty.

This wasn’t a shock for him, though, it’s pretty much the same situation as he encountered on his first Chuo Line Green Car ride about a week earlier than this one. Chuo line commuters haven’t exactly been falling over one another to shell out for Green Car seats, and so the carriage wasn’t just quiet, it was practically silent.

As a matter of fact, it almost felt a little lonely to Ahiruneko as he sat there with such copious amounts of personal space.

That said, this does make the Green Car a great option if you want peace and quiet. There’s also free Wi-Fi, and without any aural distractions you could probably work pretty productively while you ride.

Now let’s move on to Day 2, when Ahiruenko got on the Kaiji special limited express.

Though he was leaving from the exact same station at almost the same time of day, things were otherwise very different. For starters, there was a huge line of people waiting to board when the train pulled up.

As with the Green Car, there’s a supplementary fee above the base rate for Kaiji tickets. Once again, the lowest-priced tier is for rides of 50 kilometers or less, which is usually an additional 760 yen. Once again there’ a discount available, though, and if you reserve your seat using the Eki Net online ticket service, it’s just 660 yen, 90 yen less than the Green Car surcharge.

Lots of people waiting on the platform of course resulted in lots of people onboard, so Ahiruneko was happy that you do get a specific assigned seat with your Kaiji ticket. In sharp contrast to the solemn quiet of the Green Car, the Kaiji carriage had plenty of audible chatter amongst the passengers.

A lot of that probably has to do with where the two trains stop. Starting at Shinjuku and heading to Tachikawa Station, one of the outer layers of the Tokyo suburbs, Chuo Rapid Line trains can make as many as 14 stops, depending on the exact train, many of which are also busy commuter rail hubs. On the other hand, once the Kaiji leaves Shinjuku, it runs all the way to Tachikawa non-stop, and makes only one more stop after that in Tokyo, at Hachioji Station, before leaving the capital entirely, with its remaining route consisting of Otsuki and Kofu Stations in Yamanashi Prefecture. So while there are some people with long commutes who ride the Kaiji, for a lot of people it’s more of a leisure travel train, and while it’s not an official railway regulation, the unspoken understanding is that it’s OK to be a little more talkative and festive on “travel” trains as opposed to commuter ones.

Being by himself. Ahiruneko didn’t have anyone to talk to, but there was another aspect of this “travel” atmosphere that he was very thankful for…

…which was that he didn’t feel self-conscious at all cracking open a beer. While soft drinks are OK on commuter trains, alcoholic ones are a faux pas, but they’re considered fine on travel trains. As a matter of fact, the man sitting next to him had prepared even more thoroughly for the ride, having bought not only a canned grapefruit sour cocktail prior to boarding but also a bag of peanuts that he was munching on.

With fewer stops being made between Shinjuku and Tachikawa, Ahiruneko was able to really settle in, and the Kaiji also took slightly less time to make the trip than the Chuo Rapid Line Green Car train did (22 minutes versus 26 minutes). On the other hand, the Green Car train’s extra stops make it the more flexible option, since the Kaiji blows right past so many stations at a stretch. If you’re the kind of person who gets adult beverage-thirsty like Ahiruneko does, though, and the Kaiji will get you to the station you ‘re headed to, it’s the way to go.

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