We have found all the trains in Japan to be clean, comfortable, scrupulously punctual and dead easy to use - from Tokyo metro subway to Shinkansen. A great way to get around and see the country.
We got bargain price 3-day Tokyo metro passes with our Narita to Tokyo skyliner train transfer. These passes just run through a slot at the automatic gates at all the subway stations. Can't use these passes for JR lines in Tokyo though. Also didn't work for our monorail trip to Toneri, for our Nagomi visit, but buying tickets from the machine was simple, as there was an English option on instruction menu.
The JR passes - a deadset bargain for foreign tourists - are easy. Once activated (can only do this at certain major JR stations - we did this at Ueno, a couple of days after we arrived in Tokyo) we just showed the passes to station staff at the ticket gates (can't go through automatic gates) and were waived through with a polite "arigato gozaimashita".
Reserved seats for longer trips are booked with JR pass at station ticket offices and, as it is all networked, we could book multiple reservations for connecting trains at the start of our day's journey.
The station staff are very polite, appreciated my bubbling attempts at Japanese and usually had enough English to sort our tickets and point us in the right direction.
HyperDia - a train journey planning app - was helpful but we always allowed plenty of time to sort reservations at stations, as a few times we couldn't use the Shinkensen (a couple of super-fast ones are not available for JR pass) or the train was sold out (in this case station staff were very helpful with alternatives and we always got to where we wanted to go!)
PS just don't loose or damage the JR pass - no refundable and no replacements. Kerryn was the queen of our JR passes so we never missed a beat!
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