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Saturday, May 28, 2016

Osaka: Navigating the Many Namba Stations

Figure 1.  Nankai-Namba Station

When you arrive at Kansai International Airport (symbol: KIX) and try to reach your destinations via trains, sometimes you need to make connections at Namba Station (see Fig. 2).

Namba Station is one of the main connection points (the other two are Umeda and Tennoji Stations). But, Namba Station actually means 4 different stations on Google map (see Fig. 3&4) :
  • Namba Station (subway station)provides access to the Osaka Subway Midousuji (see Fig. 4), Sennichimae, and Yotsubashi lines. These lines travel to Osaka Station, Koreatown, Honmachi, and Nippombashi.
  • JR-Namba Station:  is smaller than other JR stations, containing only four tracks and two platforms. It is located in the Osaka City Air Terminal (OCAT) building, and the door for street-level entry is small and nondescript. JR Namba Station is connected to the other train stations via an underground pathway.
  • Nankai-Namba Station: provides access to Wakayama Prefecture and Kansai Airport (KIX) on the Nankai Railways.
  • Osaka-Namba Station (sometimes called Kintetsu Namba Station): serves both Kintetsu Railways and Hanshin Railways, providing access to Nara, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Kobe.


Figure 2.  Osakan trains operate on a network of private rail companies

JR and Other Private Railways in Kansai Region


On Internet, Japan Rail Pass (JR Pass) is often recommended for traveling throughout Japan, which can be used on the railway, bus and ferry services that are provided by Japan Rail Group with few exceptions.

If you are traveling within Kansai region, however, most train services are provided by a myriad of private railway companies. See the caption of the Figure 2 for some of them.


Figure 3.  Four different Namba Stations (top Namba Station is subway station & bottom Namba Station is Nankai-Namba Station)

Figure 4.  Four different Namba Stations (highlighted in green; Osaka Metro Route Map)

Which Namba Station?


To search for train routes, Jorudan becomes a handy tool. However, most likely you will find the following stations (name pair used by Google/Jorudan):
  • JR-Namba Station / JR-Namba
  • Nankai-Namba Station / Nankai-Namba
  • Osaka-Namba Station / Osaka-Namba
  • Namba Station / Namba
which are highlighted in yellow-colored rectangles of the above map (click to enlarge). Based on which railways you ride on, you might arrive at different Namba station. For connections, you may need to walk over to the nearby Namba station which is serviced by another railway company. For example, if you ride on trains serviced by Nankai Railways, you could arrive at Nankai-Namba Station. To reach Nara, you may want to take trains serviced by Kintetsu Railways. In that case, you need to take a 12-mins walk to Osaka-Namba Station (see map below).



References

  1. Kansai Thru Pass (Surutto Kansai)
  2. Hyperdia
  3. Japan Rail Pass
  4. Japan Rail Group
  5. How to enjoy Osaka
  6. KIX to Namba Station serviced by Nankai Limited Express Rapi:t
    • KIX → Tengachaya → Shin-Imamiya → Namba
    • Departure from KIX roughly every 30 mins
    • Regular seat: 1130 yen (downloaded on 05/30/2016)
    • How to purchase a ticket
  7. Living in: The world's safest cities
    • Osaka, Amsterdam, Sydney,  Singapore, Stockholm
  8. Best Things to do in Osaka - Overnight City Guide (video)
  9. Namba Station: Trains, transfers and getting around
  10. Midosuji Line M20 Namba Station
  11. Kintetsu Railways
  12. Osaka Area Route Map
  13. Japan Transit Planner (Jorudan)
  14. Osaka Metro Route Map (pdf)

Figure 5.  Midosuji Line M20 Namba Station (M19: Shinsaibashi)


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