Unlike the thorough Deutsche Bahn site in Germany, there is no train seat booking sites in English besides the one offered by JR East. However it covers only the Shinkansen and limited express trains mainly running in the Northern Japan where not many tourists from abroad are interested in.
JR East booking siteSeems many tourists intend to travel Tokyo and Western Japan such as Kyoto and Hiroshima. The thing is that most people have no means to make train seat reservations until they come to Japan for the Tokaido-Sanyo Main Line Shinkansen, or for other trains to popular destinations such as to Takayama. I presume many people plan to utilize the Japan Rail Pass.
Even though you can't make reservations, there is a way to search train seat availabilities online beforehand.
JR Cyber Station site
If your computer recognizes Japanese characters, and you'd like to check vacancies on the trains running in Japan in advance by yourself, you might give it a go by following my directory.
| ご希望の内容を入力して、検索ボタンをクリックして下さい。 | ||||||
| ■ 乗車月日 |
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| ■ 乗車時刻 |
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| ■ お乗りになる列車 | ||||||
| ■ 乗車駅・降車駅 | ||||||
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| → | ||||||
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ご利用時間は、6時30分から22時30分です。 | ||||||
乗車月日 / Boarding date: month / day
乗車時刻 / Boarding time: hour / minute
お乗りになる列車 / Type of train: when you click the arrow, there will appear a drop-down with train names.
==Update on 29th June 2011==
New Shinkansen train names such as Mizuho, Sakura, Hayabusa have been added in the list below.
1st line; asking you to choose one of them below
2nd line; Nozomi, Hikari, Mizuho, Sakura and Tsubame
3rd line; Kodama
4th line; Hayabusa, Hayate, Yamabiko, Nasuno, Tsubasa and Komachi
5th line; Toki, Tanigawa ans Asama
6th line; Tsubame
7th line; Choose here if you aren't traveling on Shinkansen, e.g. (limited) express trains e.g. Hida for Takayama
乗車駅・降車駅 / Choose the original and destined stations, and press the blue icon.
Fill the blanks in case you will take some other train than the Shinkansen.
Then the result will come up.
Typical names of the stations tourists are likely to use:
東京 / Tokyo
品川/ Shinagawa
新横浜 / Shin-Yokohama
小田原/ Odawara (Gateway to Hakone)
名古屋 / Nagoya
京都 / Kyoto
新大阪 / Shin-Osaka
姫路/ Himeji
広島 / Hiroshima
博多/ Hakata (Fukuoka)
熊本 / Kumamoto
鹿児島中央 / Kagoshima-Chuo
I now try to check the Shinkansen ordinary class seat availability for 9th August from Tokyo to Kyoto.
The results are:
08 月 09 日 東京 → 京都 / On August 9th, From Tokyo to Kyoto
| 空席案内 ( Train seat vacancies ) |  Ordinary |  Green Class | ||||
| 列車名 ( train # ) | 発時刻 ( dep ) | 着時刻 ( arr ) |  |  | | |
| のぞみ １０７号 / Nozomi 107 | 08:00 | 10:21 | △ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| ひかり ３６３号 / Hikari 363 | 08:03 | 10:48 | × | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| のぞみ １１号＜全席禁煙＞ / Nozomi 11 | 08:10 | 10:28 | △ | ＊ | △ | ＊ |
| のぞみ １７５号 / Nozomi 175 | 08:13 | 10:34 | △ | △ | △ | ○ |
| のぞみ １０９号 | 08:20 | 10:41 | ○ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| のぞみ １３号 | 08:30 | 10:50 | × | △ | △ | ○ |
| ひかり ４０５号 / Hikari 405 | 08:33 | 11:14 | × | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| のぞみ １１１号 | 08:40 | 11:01 | △ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| のぞみ ２１１号 | 08:47 | 11:08 | △ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| のぞみ ６３号 | 08:50 | 11:11 | × | ○ | △ | ○ |
| のぞみ １１３号 | 09:00 | 11:21 | × | ○ | ○ | ○ |
| ひかり ３６５号 | 09:03 | 11:48 | △ | ○ | ○ | ○ |
Man taking a seat = reserved seat
Clover in green color = Green class
'B' in the bed = B (second) class sleeper berth
Remarks below:
○：空席があります。--Vacant
△：空席が残りわずかです。--Nearly full
×：満席です。 --Full
－：該当する席はありません。または予約できません。 No service on that particular train (e.g. Green car seats), or unable to book.
＊：喫煙席はありませんが、喫煙ルームが設置されています。--No smoking allowed in all seats, but there are designated smoking areas on some of the carriages. (Shinkansen series N700)
Another example is the limited express Hida from Nagoya to Takayama at 6:00 am on 9th August. Choose the date, departure timeut the original and destined stations in the blanks.
Station names in Japanese:
名古屋: Nagoya
高山: Takayama
The results are as below.
08 月 09 日 名古屋 → 高山 / On August 9th, from Nagoya to Takayama
| 空席案内 / Train seat vacancies | ordinary | Green |  First class sleeper |  Second class sleeper | ||||||
| 列車名 / Train names | 発時刻 ( dep ) | 着時刻 ( arr ) | | | | | | | | |
| ひだ １号 / Hida #1 | 07:43 | 10:04 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ ３号 | 08:43 | 10:52 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ ５号 | 09:43 | 12:13 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ ７号 | 10:48 | 13:07 | ○ | ○ | △ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ ９号 | 11:48 | 14:16 | × | ○ | △ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ １１号 | 12:48 | 15:17 | ○ | ○ | △ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ ９５号 | 13:48 | 16:13 | △ | - | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ １３号 | 14:48 | 17:08 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ １５号 | 15:48 | 18:20 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ １７号 | 17:48 | 20:15 | ○ | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - |
| ひだ １９号 | 19:43 | 22:07 | ○ | ○ | - | - | - | - | - | - |
As of today ( 30th July, 2008 ), many of Hida trains are still vacant.
Last example is an overnight sleeper train 'Hokutosei' from Ueno to Sapporo. Try to search vacancies for the same day as above cases. The departure time should be chosen as 19:00
08 月 09 日 上野 → 札幌 / On August 9th, From Ueno to Sapporo
| 空席案内 / Train vacancies info | | | | B class, or second class sleeper | ||||||
| 列車名 / Train name | 発時刻 ( dep ) | 着時刻 ( arr ) | | | | | | | | |
| 北斗星号 / Hokutosei | 19:03 | 11:15 | - | - | - | - | - | - | × | × |
It's completely booked up.
==Newly added on 30th June 2011==
Search results for 16th July 2011 as of 20:00 on 30th June 2011
07 月 16 日 新大阪 → 博多 / 16th July, from Shin-Osaka to Hakata
| 空席案内 | | | ||||
| 列車名 | 発時刻 | 着時刻 | | | | |
| のぞみ ９５号＜全席禁煙＞ / Nozomi #95 | 07:12 | 09:40 | × | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| ひかり ５４５号 / Hikari Railstar #545 | 07:20 | 10:09 | △ | △ | - | - |
| みずほ ６０３号＜全席禁煙＞ / Mizuho #603 | 07:50 | 10:15 | × | ＊ | △ | - |
| のぞみ ９７号＜全席禁煙＞ | 07:58 | 10:27 | △ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| さくら ５９９号＜全席禁煙＞ / Sakura #599 | 08:02 | 10:46 | △ | ＊ | △ | - |
| のぞみ ９９号＜全席禁煙＞ | 08:21 | 10:50 | ○ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| のぞみ １号＜全席禁煙＞ | 08:27 | 10:55 | ○ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| のぞみ ３号＜全席禁煙＞ | 08:45 | 11:13 | △ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| さくら ５４７号＜全席禁煙＞ | 08:59 | 11:39 | × | ＊ | × | - |
| のぞみ ５号＜全席禁煙＞ | 09:09 | 11:43 | ○ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| のぞみ ７号＜全席禁煙＞ | 09:29 | 11:59 | ○ | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
| のぞみ ９号＜全席禁煙＞ | 09:45 | 12:13 | × | ＊ | ○ | ＊ |
This site works from 6:30 to 22:30 in Japanese time.
Wish I could motivate you to try this site.
