Originally Posted by
travellerK
FWIW, I took the Shinkansen Osaka to Tokyo last night (15:40-18:40), my car was not more than 40% full and most of the passenger seemed to be foreigners with the railpass (like me).
Well it's no surprise all the tourists are lumped together on the few Hikari trains that still run, since you all can't ride the Nozomi with your JR passes... whereas the fare difference for a Japan resident passenger is relatively trivial, and the Nozomi trains are faster.