 |
It took a long day of traveling
to get from Kinosaki, on the Japan Sea, to Hattoji, in the mountains
of Okayama prefecture. Along the way I took the train through Wadayama,
a tiny town in the central mountains. It was surprising to me
how much these towns reminded me of tiny logging towns in the Pacific
Northwest. |
| The train system in this part of Japan was
the central form of transportation; but the population is so small
that it's still very thin. This was a beautiful old brick enginehouse
alongside the station in Wadayama. Several small train lines converged
in Wadayama. |
|
 |
The trains in this part of Japan were these
tiny two-car conveyances. Various signs proclaimed this kind of train
to be either a 'bantan' (I don't know the derivation of that), or
a 'wanman' in katakana. That's a Japanization of "One Man",
referrring to the fact that there's no conductor, and you just drop
your fare in a fare box, like on a bus. At right, a sketch of a wanman
making a busy-for-a-wanman station stop. |
 |
|
