I saw someone on Twitter discussing this bit from WDKALY:
Kuchiki Rukia and Abarai Renji were currently sitting side by side on that very bench. The time was around 10 p.m. and the small night view of Karakura Town was spread out below them. Because Renji was not as familiar with the Human World as much as Rukia was, every time a train would pass by he would curiously follow it with his eyes.
and hear me out, but I want Soul Society to have a train so, so bad. Like, an old timey train, all the best anime have trains. Consider:
Anytime anyone went anywhere in Full Metal Alchemist
The train ride to Swamp Bottom in Spirited Away
That time Kenshin rode a horse onto a train, and also Sanosuke deeply distrusted the train
Demon Slayer had a whole movie about a train and Inosuke wanted to fight it and then it turned into demon and Inosuke did fight it
And this is just period trains.
Anyway, I have decided to headcanon up a train for Soul Society. I have posited before that there is a sea out in East Rukongai that is a source for a lot of (especially canned) sea food, and is also something of a tourist spot for those with the ability to travel.
At some point, someone had the idea to build a train route that would connect the Seireitei to the sea, which would encourage commerce and tourism. Unfortunately, because it’s the Seireitei, it got NIMBYed when it was already partially under construction, so it actually only runs between Districts 6 and 24 of East Rukongai and is fairly expensive, which defeats the purpose almost entirely. It is sort of a twee thing to do for nobles to sally forth out to District 6 and take the train on a Seaside Excursion. There are various onsen and other scenic stops along the way.
Byakuya vocally disapproves of the train-- he says it is “newfangled” and undignified. The fact is, he has actually ridden it-- he and Hisana took a trip out at some point “for her health.” Byakuya found the train to be both loud and smelly (my man got the sensory sensitivity), but Hisana loved the whole experience, so B may act mad, but it’s actually because thinking about the train makes him very sad.
Train construction/funding/legislation drama took up major real estate in the Seireitei Communication for years. Tousen was hot mad about every single aspect of the project, from the fact that it could have been a major economic benefit to the citizens of East Rukongai (and wasn’t), to the awful way the project was managed, to all the graft and corruption and kickbacks. The lieutenants all know better than to mention The Train to Hisagi, unless they want to spend the rest of the evening listening to his conspiracy theories about all the bodies hidden in the District 18 overpass.
Hitsugaya fucking loves trains and knows a bunch of details about the capacity of the boilers and the design of the flyball governors and crap like that. He knows how nerdy this is, and tries really hard to keep it to himself, but sometimes, on a Friday afternoon before a bank holiday, he’ll let Matsumoto drink in the office while he waxes poetic on rail gauges.
Ukitake and Kyouraku loved a romantic train trip, and made a vacation of it every few years.
It is Soi Fon’s dream to someday fight Yoruichi on top of the train as it speeds through the Rukon countryside.
Rukia and Renji got married in the wintertime, and they didn’t go on a honeymoon at the time, but Byakuya lowkey bought them a train trip the following summer (because Rukia had asked to hear the story about The Time He and Hisana Went to the Seaside about a million times). They were both a little nervous about it, even though Rukia kept bragging about how many vehicles she’d ridden in the World of the Living (by which she meant Isshin’s FunCargo). To make a long story short, they spent the whole trip with their noses pressed up against the window like a pair of Golden Retrievers and had the time of the afterlives.
