Trains: Japan and nostalgia

Why is it that depictions of train journeys in Japan move me so much? I first felt the pang in Spirited Away, the award-winning Studio Ghibli feature, towards the end where the young heroine shares an otherwise empty train with a sad monster on a journey across a desolate landscape. It was not just the memory of similar lonely journeys returning late at night, which would have been nostalgic enough. I think it is more the sudden recognition of a common bond with an otherwise alien culture. 

I felt it again when I caught up with al-Jazeera's documentary, Off the Rails: a Journey Through Japan. This was a nostalgic return by a former teacher of English to Japanese students who had originally been attracted to the country by the publicity surrounding the first Shinkansen, but who came to love the many local train lines as well. Disastrous earth-movements apart, the threats to branch lines are familiar to British rail-lovers, as well as the affection which moves Japanese to preserve their rail heritage. But even in Britain, there is not a rail-line which has been saved by a station-master cat.