Station coin lockers, and the bag that will not fit

A coin locker is for the hours between a checkout and a train, or between a train and a check-in that has not started. It is not how a suitcase gets from Tokyo to Kyoto. That job belongs to a delivery, which is its own decision and should be made before you are standing at a wall of small doors.

Stations in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka have rows of lockers in a few sizes. Small and medium fill first, often by late morning at the big stations. A large suitcase needs the large door, and those are the doors that are gone. If the case is taller than the largest opening, stop trying diagonals. It will not shrink, and you are blocking the person whose bag does fit.

Pay, note the deadline, and leave

The price is printed on the door. Many newer lockers take an IC card as well as coins. Photograph the door number and keep the receipt. You will be tired when you come back, and a memory of “the Yaesu side” is not a location.

• Read the pickup deadline before you walk away. Some lockers are same-day. Some allow the next morning.
• A bag left past the deadline can be moved. Getting it back then costs time you did not plan.
• Keep the passport and the only bank card on you. The locker is for the heavy thing, not the essential thing.
• If one row is full, try another bank in the same station before you decide the city has no lockers.
• A staffed counter is the backup when no door fits. Pointing at the suitcase is a complete question.

The deadline is the part visitors skip. A locker that expires at midnight is a bad place for the bag you need at 7:00 after a late dinner. If you are not sure you will be back in time, do not use it. Send the bag, or ask the hotel what they charge to hold it.

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What stays with you anyway

Even on a delivery day, one small bag stays on your shoulder. Medication, a change of clothes, the charger, the rain shell. The delivery is allowed to arrive after you do. The afternoon should not depend on it. A locker is the same idea for a shorter gap: the heavy bag waits, and you walk.

Kyoto Station and Tokyo Station are large enough to lose a row of doors. Budget time to find the lockers and time to find them again. Signs are often in English, and the map by the gate is faster than a lap of the basement. If you are changing from a shinkansen to a local train, the lockers beside the shinkansen gates are often the full ones. Walk a minute further.

Use a locker when both ends of the day are in the same city and the hotel cannot take the bag yet. Use a delivery when the next night for that bag is another city. Mixing those up is how people miss a train while negotiating with a door.