To the hills…

Nagano is in the mountains and is known for skiing, a sort of Japanese Zermatt, or what Zermatt would look like if the locals decided to build skyscrapers and a Shinkansen terminal in the middle. Between there and Nagoya is a lot of forest and lumpy bits, cut by rivers in deep gorges with spindly bridges, and a railway.



This is a bit of the mountain section. The line which peels off into a tunnel on the right as we leave the station is actually a long loop, one of several in the mountains which I expect speeds things up as the line seems to be running near to capacity: about every second station we passed a passenger or freight train.
You can see the tilt capability clearly on the curves. The wobble caused by me holding one of the boys while filming. I really need to get a tripod. In this video the train accelerated to about 80kph, so I filmed the next one when we were on a straighter section and moving faster- about 120kph at the beginning...



It's as wide as a British coach, seats fifty in comfort, and rides like a dream, but honestly, this is a Narrow Gauge train...