A few upgrades to the JR West timetable, including removal of smoking carriages from most services.
QuoteImproved and More Comfortable Service from Tokyo and Kansai Regions to Kanazawa
- One additional round-trip Limited Express Hakutaka is being added between Echigo-Yuzawa and Kanazawa so that service will be once an hour. With this additional train, rail access from Tokyo to Kanazawa will become even more convenient since there will be 13 round-trip connections daily, all via Echigo-Yuzawa on the Joetsu Shinkansen Line.
- New rail cars will be introduced for the Limited Express Thunder Bird on the route: Osaka - Kyoto - Fukui - Kanazawa - Toyama - Uozu.
(https://www.actbus.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.japanrail.com%2Fimage%2Fnews%2F09_04%2FThunder_Bird.jpg&hash=8d18d0d4769451edad6ea13d17361ca655d9f86d)
Non-Smoking Limitations Expanded
(https://www.actbus.net/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.japanrail.com%2Fimage%2Fnews%2F09_04%2Fnosomoking_sign.jpg&hash=e87cd4739f142e022139196c008bc53810bc8b5c)
At the time of the schedule revision on 1 June 2009, JR Central and JR West will make all of their long-distance Limited Express trains completely non-smoking with the important exception of Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen 'bullet trains' as well as overnight sleeper trains.
In addition, on 1 July of this year JR West will make the interior areas of all its stations in the Kyoto / Osaka / Kobe area completely non-smoking.
Source: http://www.japanrail.com/JR_news.html#0203c
Limited Express Thunder Bird? Someone likes their 1960's cartoons :P
Lol, I love the name 'Thunderbird'! I saw only one Thunderbird set when I was in Japan, did not get a photo though.