BG Report: Dinostar train of Fukui, Japan

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In summer 2023 I rode a train from the city of Fukui to the city of Kanazawa, Japan. The train was called Dinostar – one of JR’s shortest limited express routes. And it was a service that was coming to an end.

As I write this, the Dinostar is scheduled to be discontinued in March 2024. I felt lucky to be one of the few non-locals to have ridden this train. It goes north twice a day, and south only once, making it very infrequent for a named JR train like this. Mine left before 8 am, and there were hardly any people in my car. My BG before breakfast had been high, 249, so I’d had to take a large insulin shot for my early breakfast.

The ride on Dinnostar was only 50 minutes, but it goes through the stunningly lovely fields and low green hills of Fukui and Ishikawa Prefectures. The scenery, and the quiet, early morning vibe, made the trip very pleasant.

Dinosaur fossils were discovered in Fukui Prefecture in the 1980s, and the area is proud of them. That’s why this service was called Dinostar. It was established in 2015, to take up the slack at times when the Thunderbird (from Osaka to Kanazawa) wasn’t running.

After the ride, I asked the driver about the train being discontinued. He said that JR is selling some of its lines in this area to the IR Ishikawa Railway, and thus the Dinostar won’t exist. (The Thunderbird still will, apparently, somehow.)

I felt my blood sugar was better, and so it was: in the 130s in Kanazawa. Thanks to the dinosaurs of Fukui for helping me reduce my blood sugar, with a ride on a doomed train that I can say I rode before it, like the dinosaurs, went extinct.

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