Kurobe Gorge Trolley Train — Attraction in Kurobe

Overjoyed and painful - this was my experience going to Keyakidaira from Unazuki. Bottom line: bring ear plugs and you'll enjoy it. Confused? Read on.

The scenery is just as beautiful as advertised, if not more. The colorful leaves of Autumn, ranging from light green to bright yellow and fiery red, enveloping the steep rocky mountains shooting up towards the sky, made the view absolutely breathtaking. It's around an hour walk along the river until you reach Babadani Open Air Hot Springs, where you'll find boiling water mixing with the cool river water. Oh, the water! Dark emerald green sparkling from the sun light, or the turquoise color foaming water as it runs among the rocks, rivers in this area were among the most gorgeous I've ever seen.

However, the train ride was a miserable torture. The idea of riding a retro style train traversing the gorge in an open air car, cradled by the katang-katang sounds of the rails is very romantic - and I too fell for it. In reality, about half of the ride is spent within tight tunnel walls, with all the noises amplified to many times louder, echoing a cacophony of screeching un-lubricated breaking wheels competing with a chaotic concert of banging frying pans (just imagine thousands of forks slowly scraping metallic plates, and the gentle katang-katang becomes baBANG!-baBANG! within close walls). Don't get me wrong, when the train is outside, everything is so wonderful it feels like paradise, but when it's inside the tunnels, it feels like the worst hell imaginable.

I strongly recommend: be prepared with ear plugs and it will undoubtedly be a...

What a wonderful experience! My mom and I went on this train and enjoyed it so much. The start of the journey, everything was mostly fall foliage but the further along we went, half the mountain became snow-covered and by the end, it was snowing and everything around us became a winter wonderland.

We bought tickets the day before but when we missed our reservation time, we went and they were easily able to get us on the next available train and we were still the only ones in the train car.

It was a rainy day in Toyama so we were wearing our raincoats and brought our scarves, gloves and a hat plus some heattech underneath as well as some pocket warmers and I'd say if we weren't in the closed cars, we'd have really suffered from the cold. So make sure to bundle up.

The windowed cars have underseat heaters so your body stays warm plus you can pull down the windows to take pictures, just be considerate of others and put them up when you don't need them because the wind is very cold! We also got to see some monkeys along the way.

If you enjoy beautiful scenery and/or trains, this is...

[General Info] It takes about 80 minutes to go to the destination called Keyakidaira. There are three different classes. The most casual one has bench but no windows on both sides.

[Some Advice] For those who visit there not in summer, I encourage you to bring a sweater or light kind of coat. I went there in the mid September, but the weather is pretty cool even with two long sleeve shirts.

[Brief History] The train has originally built to develop a huge dam up in Kurobe river, which is also currently one of the major tourist attraction today. While the purpose of train was simply to transport the workers through many shallow tunnels, which is made right behind the.long standing cliff, many tourists heard about a fine dynamic scenery, which one can seize only from this train. Then, the company in charge allowed them to ride along, though tourists must take their own risk. Currently the train is divided into the ones for tourism and ones...