JR Central and JR West have announced a new "supreme class" for Japan’s most used bullet train route, featuring private cabins and other upgrades from October.
The new cabin class will be offered on the Tokaido/Sanyo Shinkansen, linking the capital with Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.
The train company has likened the supreme class to a plane’s first-class experience. Each train features two private cabins – a double room for up to two passengers (car seven) and a single-passenger cabin (car 10).
Guests can expect a large reclining seat with table, luggage space and door which can be locked. The double room additionally includes a sofa-style secondary seat. Seats cannot be rotated.
The supreme class cabin will initially be available on six daily round trips. Services will increase to 15 by end 2026.
These will be launched in October on Nozomi trains – the fastest service category – as well as select Hikari and Kodama services.
Later between April next year and March 2028, JR Central and JR West will add a second supreme class seat type – suites comprising three rows of two semi-private seats, separated by an aisle.
Located at car 10, the seats can be rotated to face the train’s travel direction or a companion. It also comes with similar amenities and services to the supreme class cabin.
While the seats are not fully enclosed, they will offer a higher degree of privacy, compared to the green car seats – often likened to a plane’s business-class offering.
Other planned services include dedicated Wi-Fi access, seat speakers, and a tablet to toggle lights, volume and the air-conditioning.
A supreme class single room will cost around 42,000 yen (US$86) – about twice as much as a green car (20,000 yen). The entry tier ordinary class, unreserved, is priced at around 14,000 yen.
It has not been announced if the new cabin and seat class will be covered by rail passes such as the popular Japan Rail Pass.