emcninch

According to my travel guide book, it takes about 5 hours to travel from Hiroshima to Tokyo. Is it possible to leave Hiroshima on the day I fly out of Narita airport? Do I have to go to Tokyo first and then take another train to Narita?

KimJapan

When I used hyperdia.com to check I couldn't find better than 5 hours and 45 minutes with one change for the day and time I checked. There may be better or worse schedules depending on the day and time you need...but I'd count on it taking 6 hours.

rkkwan

Well, from what I'm seeing, the direct Nozomis arrive in Tokyo Station usually at :06 or :30 after the 4 hour journey from Hiroshima. The Narita Express usually leaves at :03 and :33 to NRT, and takes 55 minutes.

So, best case scenario, it'll take 5 hours. More likely 5:30.

KimJapan

You can change from the Nozomi to the Narita Express in Shinagawa, too, so depending on the day and time, you have at least a couple of options. You do have to change trains at least once to get to Narita airport, though.

emd

Change for the Narita Express at Shinagawa instead of Tokyo Station if you can. We did that and it is MUCH easier than Tokyo Station; Shinigawa is smaller and much more manageable and you can make a very quick connection if you need to.
Whether you can do this depends of course on what time you fly out of Narita that day, and timing of the trains. I went from Kyoto to Shinagawa very early a.m. (like around 7 a.m.), and got the Narita Express to Narita from there at 11 a.m., got to Narita and noon and flew out at 3 p.m., w/no time to spare. You've got to check the train times in view of your departure from Narita. And give yourself a few hrs at the airport for check in and screening and getting to the gate.

emcninch

Thanks everyone for your replies. I'm definitely going to check out hyperdia.com to plan my train trips. We're leaving from Narita on the 6pm flight. So if we leave Hiroshima in the morning, we should have plenty of time to get there. BTW, if I have a JR pass, I cannot take the Nozomi, right?

mrwunrfl

That's right, you can't use the JR Pass for the Nozomi trains. When you check hyperdia you may want to try a few different times. That way you should be able to find an optimal route (e.g. you should only have to make one connection between Hiroshima and Tokyo/Shinagawa (at Shin Osaka, e.g.) and probably 4 stops or less (Okayama, Shin Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya).

emcninch

I looked it up on hyperdia. But are the train times trains I can use a JR Pass on? I don't understand what the symbols mean. Are these Nozomi trains that it's showing? I was using a Japan Rail site too and saw that there are a lot of Nozomi trains. The non-Nozomi trains didn't seem to connect at the same station.

KimJapan

I think you'll have to connect twice...once in shin-Osaka and once somewhere in Tokyo to get the express to the airport. Hyperdia.com gives the best routings, but not all of the routings. You can seperate out the route and do seperate seaches working backwards...arriving at Narita airport at 3:30 from shin-Osaka. See what time the train departs shin-Osaka, then do a seperate search for the train from Hiroshima to shin-Osaka arriving 10 minutes before the departure from shin-Osaka. That way, you won't get the Nozomi coming up all the time, as there isn't a way to exclude only Nozomi trains.

When you don't understand the symbol in hyperdia, click on it and you'll get more info.

nickn

Kimjapan is right on regarding travelling across JR West to JR East lines.

Here are some background knowledge if you are using the JR pass from Hiroshima to Tokyo.

The Hikari train that stops at Hiroshima ends in Shin-Osaka.

(few) Hikari to Tokyo usually originates from Okayama. Other Hikari originates from Shin-Osaka.

So between Okayama and Shin-Osaka, two types of Hiakari trains (I think from different JR company, JR west and JR East) operate, one that goes to Hiroshima and other that goes Tokyo.

To make a trip from Hiroshima to Tokyo using JR pass, you will need to switch from one Hikari to another somewhere between Okayama and Shin-Osaka.

By the way, the Japanese version of hyperdia has a button to "exclude" nozomi (the one in parenthesis). The resonse, of course comes back in Japanese. But by matching the train time and #, between Japanese and English version, you can figure out which ones are Nozomi, Hikari, or Kodama Japanese version also lets you search more months ahead and displays up to 10 trains, instead of 5.

mrwunrfl

Right, two connections all the way to the airport: a max of 1 to Shinagawa or Tokyo and second to the Narita Express.

You can piece the schedules together from the 3 legs by looking at the schedules.

First, do a hyperdia search for Hiroshima to Shinosaka departing 6:40 on your day and see that there is a Hikari Railstar departing at 6:44. In the Time Table column click on the clock/book icon and you will see the schedule for that leg for the day. You are interested only in the Hikari RailStar trains.

Second, search Shinosaka to Shinagawa departing 6:00 and see the Hikari at 6:08. Click the icon to get that schedule. You are interested only in the Hikari trains.

Third, Shinagawa to Narita Airport arrival at 15:00, for Train to Use select only JR Ltd Exp. Click the icon and you can see the Narita Express schedule for the day.

Shinagawa 14:20 arrives Narita 15:28
Shinosaka 11:19 arrives Shinagawa 14:05
Hiroshima 09:10 arrives Shinosaka 10:44

All of which just goes to show that what you want to do can be done. Let JR work out the actual schedule when you get your seat reservations in advance.

nickn, do you know if the connection at Shin Osaka would be the same platform? It's all one line, isn't it?

nickn

The portion I took was Hiroshima to Kyoto, which during the day time has the exactly same issue faced by EMCNINCH. I had to change the train somewhere between Okayama and Shin-Osaka.

I recall that Shin-Osaka connection was not that good, rarely the same platform, may be 6 tracks away. My impression was that it was not a common connection (for locals who don't use JR pass.)