As previously reported, JR Kyushu and JR West will renovate their online train booking services on March 5 ,2011. The new services are "e5489" by JR West and "JR Kyushu's Internet Train Reservation Service". As a common offer of these two services, "e kippu (eきっぷ)", year-round discount tickets for Sanyo and Kyushu Shinkansen and other trains, will be available. To travel from Shin-Osaka to Kumamoto, it costs JPY 19,590 with this ticket whereas JPY 21,600 of full-fare. In addition, it costs JPY 18,180 with "e Hayatoku (e早特)", an early booking discount, which is available up to three days prior to the travel date. And "e5489" and "JR Kyushu's Internet Train Reservation Service" are support accesses through NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, au's EZweb, Softbank Mobile's Yahoo! phone. Moreover, "e5489" is WILLCOM compliant.

JR Kyushu announced that they will suspend their online reservations service's booking and purchasing functions from February 12 until March 4, preparatory to the service renovation.

As in past years, JR Central's "Express Reservation Service (エクスプレス予約 or EX予約)" is a online booking service for Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen between Tokyo and Hakata. That doesn't support Mizuho and Sakura trains on Sanyo Shinkansen. They said EX-IC service and "e express ticket" for second class non reservation seats are exceptionally good also for those seats on Mizuho and Sakura trains. Express Reservation users frequently taking trains on Sanyo Shinkansen may be worth to consider choosing another online train booking service such as "e5489".

According to the news releases, verbal and data communications on mobile phones in Kyushu Shinkansen's tunnels will be available between Hakata and Shin-Tosu from March 12, 2011. The antenna installed tunnels are Kajio Tunnel (360 m), Nakagawa Tunnel (1,060 m) and Chikushi Tunnel (12,115 m). Chikushi Tunnel is the longest tunnel on Kyushu Shinkansen, between Hakata and Kagoshima-Chuo. The services by NTT DoCoMo, au, Softbank Mobile and EMOBILE are available. At this moment, there are no plans to stretch the area for the south of Shin-Tosu.

Kokura Station's "South Exit" and "North Exit" will be renamed on March 12, 2011. The new names are "Kokura Castle Exit" for the south and "Shinkansen Exit" for the north. These names were sought from the public in last November and selected by Kitakyushu City and Kitakyushu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, because the existing mundane and confusing names are unpopular with citizens. The name of "Kokura Castle Exit" derives from the castle located at a 15 minutes' walk from the exit. North Exit passes by the name of "Shinkansen Exit" before.

On the same day, Kumamoto Station's exits will also be changed their name. "East Exit" will be called "Shirakawa Exit" and "West Exit" will be "Shinkansen Exit".

JR-Central Passengers is offering a coffee discount campaign. At their stands in Tokyo, Shinagawa, Shin-Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto and Shin-Osaka Stations, all purchasers of target packed lunch will get a 100-yen coupon for a coffee until January 31, 2011. The target boxed lunchs are "Tokaido Shinkansen's business trip support manifesto!" line's ones. The coupon is valid until February 28.

With only two months left until the Kyushu Shinkansen's full service beginning, 10,000 participants in Mexican Wave along Kyushu Shinkansen are now wanted. This is an event to produce commercials with shooting the performancing people to a Shinkansen train. The organizers hope the event involves people becoming one.

On February 20, wrapping Shinkansen train runs from Kagoshima-Chuo to Hakata with cameras. The staff on the train will shoot people's performance at venues, such as Mexican wave and handwaving to the Shinkansen. The organizers are now inviting participants as individuals and groups. Registration at the special website is required to join this event.

Overview of Waves running throughout Kyushu

• Date and time: February 20, 2011
  # The shooting train's schedule is still up in the air.
• Locations:
  • Hakata (Shinkansen's platform of Hakata Station) [full]
  • Shin-Tosu (banks of Yasura River)
  • Kurume (Shinkansen's platform of Kurume Station)
  • Chikugo-Funagoya (banks of Yabe River)
  • Shin-Omuta (Shinkansen's platform of Shin-Omuta Station)
  • Shin-Tamana (east side farm road by station square)
  • Kumamoto (Shinkansen's platform of Kumamoto Station) [full]
  • Shin-Yatsushiro (Gamesa Park)
  • Shin-Minamata (banks of Minamata River)
  • Izumi (Koganemachi farm road)
  • Sendai (Sendai swiming pool)
  • Kagoshima-Chuo (Shinkansen's platform of Kagoshima-Chuo Station)
  # JR Kyushu announced some venue other than those above is free for pre-registration.
  # As of January 11, applications for Hakata, Shin-Tosu, Kurume and Kumamoto are closed to new entries, because the venues are already full. The organizer said they may increase the capacity and resume acceptance of entries.
• Application deadline: February 16, 2011

JR Central announced that they will replace the aging moving safety fences on Atami Stations platform.

The existing fences, built in 1974, were aligned to Series 0 car's door position. The newly installed safety fences will have wide openings conforming closely to the doors of Series 700 and N700 and the gates will be 1.7 m, 20 cm wider than existing ones. They said the new fences will enable passengers to board and exit trains more smoothly. The new moving safety fences will come into use in this December on platform 7 for eastbound and in next July on platform 6 for westbound.

JR Central, West and Kyushu announced that their IC rail pass of "TOICA", "ICOCA" and "SUGOCA" will be accepted in each other's IC card area from March 5, 2011. After that date, TOICA holders, ICOCA holders and SUGOCA holders can get on trains and enjoy shopping with their card in Tokai area as TOICA area, Kinki and Chugoku area as ICOCA area and Kyushu area as SUGOCA area. The IC transfering service enabled automatic ticket checkers at transfer gates in Shinkansen stations will accept "SUGOCA" from March 5 and the checkers in Kokura and Hakata stations will open to that service with "TOICA", "ICOCA", "SUGOCA" etc. from March 12.

Aside from this, the media reports that ten of major IC rail pass cards are now under review to interoperate with each other card in the spring of 2013. The ten IC cards are "Suica" of JR East, "TOICA" of JR Central, "ICOCA" of JR West, "SUGOCA" of JR Kyushu, "Kitaca" of JR Hokkaido, "PASMO" at Tokyo, "manaca" at Nagoya, "PiTaPa" at Osaka and "Hayakaken" and "nimoca" at Fukuoka. When started the interoperation, IC pass for everyday use will be possible to use at destinations for business trips and leisure travels. That means a drastic improvement in convenience for IC pass users.

For this winter holidays returning, JR Central and JR West estimated that the peak of crowding will be on January 3.

The charts shown below indicate seat availability of around the peak days by this site Shinkansen Timetable's independent survey. They maybe of some help to find remained seats. On the graphs, horizontal axes mean hours of 6 to 24 of each day and vertical the number of trains. The bar of blue shows underoccupied trains, yellow near capacity and red full occupancy. So it may easy to book trains at the hours with stretching blue bar.

The survey was performed at the midday of January 01, 2011. Visit the site of JR Cyber Station and get up-to-the-minute details.

eastbound: from Hakata to Tokyo

eastbound: from Shin-Osaka to Tokyo

eastbound: from Hakata to Shin-Osaka