Reading railroad magazines from the mid-1960s, I was surprised to read that “there are many in-train vending services in Hokkaido, even on regular trains. Nowadays, it would be rare to find on-board vending on limited express trains, let alone on regular trains. This may be due to the fact that onboard sales have become less viable as a business due to the increase in speed and decrease in the number of long-distance trains.
If not in the car, get it at the station ……?
If it is not possible to procure food and beverages in the train, it is natural to think of getting them at or near the station. However, in recent years, one must be on one’s guard. As one might expect, drinks can often be obtained from vending machines, but food is a different story.
It was a long time ago when many stations had a variety of on-site businesses such as standing noodle and udon stores in addition to kiosks. In recent years, the number of such shops has decreased considerably. In major stations in urban areas, the number of on-premises businesses has disappeared, and even if they exist, they are increasingly limited to convenience stores located outside the ticket gates.
If that is the case, I would like to suggest that you go outside the station and try ……. Of course, it “depends on the location,” but even in “representative stations” where express trains frequently stop, it is often impossible to procure food and drinks in front of the station, or there is a complete lack of restaurants. There seem to be two main reasons for this.
The first is inherent, and is the case where the station is not located in the center of the city in the first place, which is not uncommon, especially in the JNR-JR group. In particular, the Japan National Railways (JNR) and the JR group often have stations outside the city center, with JR stations located on the outskirts of town, while competing private railways have stations in the center of town.
The other is an acquired taste, where the station is not the center of town and stores are concentrated along the main roads in the suburbs. This is more likely to happen in areas that are supposed to be car-driven.
Either way, it seems that in places where you don’t see a ton of people walking to and from the station when you land in front of it, there are often few or no stores. That is probably true. It is not good business to open a store where there are no people.
From the perspective of an outsider, let alone a local resident, it is easy to assume that a place that is a strategic point for railroads, such as a railroad line junction or train transfer, will have a prosperous station area. In reality, however, there are surprisingly many situations where …… is not the case. I am sure that there are many people who have fallen into this pitfall and experienced difficulty in finding a meal. In particular, if you are using the “Seishun 18 Ticket” to take a regular train, it is sometimes a tragedy that you can’t “eat while connecting” to another train.
© Source travel watch
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