Our experience was with small wheeled suitcases on several different trains. Easy as, plenty of room to stow, sometimes overhead, if not, at the end of the carriage. Neon signs in English warn you of impending stops. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble managing this. Japan is so efficient.

Thanks for the reassurance. I’m not sure why I’m even concerned about this. Everything I read makes it sound crazy!

doug-we’ll probably give the forwarding service a try on our first trip, Tokyo on the metro to train station to Nikko.

Thanks! And isn’t it the truth, problems even disasters, can make the best travel stories.😉

I just spent a week in Tokyo which I loved! Took the metro many, many times often during rush hours. I found it to be no busier than the subways in many cities during rush hour including the DC one. It would be difficult to take even a small suitcase then. Even a backpack could be awkward.
I’ve taken 2 trains (as opposed to metro). I took my 21” bag from Narita to Tokyo Station and via the Ginza metro line to my hotel with no issues. Today I took the Ginza line metro to Asakusa and then to the Tobu train line with just my backpack. We shipped out 2 carry on cases to Nikko for the price of $30. Decided to use the shipping service mainly to avoid schlepping the luggage up and down the steps at the Ginza metro. Rolling a 21” light suitcase seems easier than carrying my backpack.
thanks everyone for your responses and suggestions. We’ve got quite a few more train trips ahead so I’ll decide for each one whether to ship ahead or not.

We’ve now been on many trains and have used the shipping service and taken our luggage. I will say 80% of people on the train have their luggage with them. For us it was not problem to have our luggage with us. We put it in the overhead or left it behind the seats at the back of the train. Perhaps it slowed us down a bit making those 8 or 9 minute transfers, but we made our many connections. What was surprising was the difficulty we had with our hotels in arranging the shipping of luggage. In general we find little English is understood and maybe we are using the wrong words. The last hotel we were in took me 10 minutes to explain it. Later we saw over in the corner on the desk a logo with the shipping and info in Japanese about it.

All in all if you feel,like spending ~$15 a piece of 21” luggage then do it . It does make for easy getting around, We had 5 trains so if we chose to do all the trips with shipping, it would cost $150 for the 2 of us which seems like a bit much to me.

In terms of getting off the train at each stop, it truly is like any train I have ever been on. You organize yourself and get near the door and jump off. Really not an issue.

Thanks for the advice when I asked. It was certain,y useful.