Originally Posted by
chucko
You can do either. It used to be (until about a year ago) that you *had* to put it on the conveyor belt to the main terminal.
Yeah, that's what I thought.
Last year I posted somewhere in FT that it was my understanding that you had to do that. But others corrected me that it was optional. Then I took a trip to TYO shortly thereafter and indeed I was able to take my checked bags with me onto the train. That saved me a lot of trouble.