When our train, the rather splendidly named Trans-Kyushu Express, arrived it was only a cut or two above its predecessor, but once we'd looped back under the Shinkansen line and headed up into the hills you weren't inclined to pay too much attention to your surroundings since your gaze is automatically drawn to the passing landscape, forest-covered ranges with almost vertical slopes that towered above the train as it wound its way along a river valley.
It wasn't quite as spectacular as the ride between Toyama and Takayama and back down to Nagoya or the run from Nagano down to Nagoya, but those are well known scenic routes. This one, a mere transitory stage before what was to come was, however, bloody magnificent.
