Love the photos Ron. Thanks for sharing. Certainly inspires me for my next tour. 
Re abandoned/closed train lines. Although driven by immediate economic necessity seems quite sad to see them consigned to history.
There’s a comedy duo from yesteryear named Flanders & Swann, some may know them.
Amongst their most well known songs ( Armadillo, Have a Madeira M’Dear etc) is The Slow Train; a bit of a nostalgic ode to many branch line closures under the so called Beeching Report springs readily to mind. Anyway here it is. Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/U6OHD2uCpfU?si=WP93Ga4SxbAbkzE7

  Well spotted, Ian. I believe I adjusted the eccentric on the evening after the photo you were probably looking at was taken.
 I am running a 38 x 17 combo right now, but before my daughter moved back to Canada from the UK I ordered a Thorn 43T chainring and 19T cog and had it sent to her to bring back. It's in my toolbox now and I'll probably throw it on before the next tour.

A few more photos from the ride.

1  One of the consequences of rural depopulation.The rail line between Sapporo and the southeast coast of Hokkaido closed down a few years ago.

2&3  Curse you, Komoot. This is my third cycle tour in Japan and I'm still waiting for a mapping program that doesn't send me on an adventure almost daily. After about 10 km riding in a beautiful valley with no traffic, my GPS instructed me to "turn left here". I thought “this does not look too promising” as it went past a farm, heading into the woods. A check of the map showed that the only other option was 10 km right  back where I had come from, so off I went. After about half a kilometre the dirt road turned into a dirt path and pitched upward. It still would've been rideable if not for the 70mm of rain that had fallen overnight, making it very soft. After a few hundred metres though the path pitched up again and basically looked like a dry stream bed. Luckily for me, it only lasted for maybe 500m then began to improve. My fun for the day.

4 Sunset from camp.

I found the Tubus racks were pricy enough, that I did not need the titanium ones.  Or stainless.  As I noted before, I use black fingernail polish to touch up any spots where the paint is worn through.  With the brush built into the cap, takes less than a minute from start to finish.

In my previous post, the third photo had the rear part of my Lynskey with the Racktime rack.  That bike has a titanium frame.

For riding around near home I use a Nitto that I picked up used at a swap meet instead of the Racktime rack.  I was surprised how heavy the Nitto was, but it looks so nice that I weigh down my titanium bike with the Nitto rack for riding around near home.  See attached photos.  The pannier in one of the photos is my gym bag, not used for touring.

Point being, on Nitto racks, check the weight before you order.  That said, they are beautiful and top quality.  But for a touring bike, the bike is supposed to have some nicks, scratches, and bruises.

Thanks, all!

That's very helpful, although I'm still undecided.  I'm still considering the Thorn Expedition, but it seems that the lower pannier rails of some other racks would be worth having.

I did briefly consider titanium (I have a couple of titanium Bagman racks which are nice) but I'm not sure how much I'll use this bike, so I'd find it hard to justify splashing out on a really expensive rack.

I also spotted that the Rivendell\Nitto rack had the lower mount in an unusual position, so fitting it could be difficult!

That looks like a lot of fun, Ron. Thanks for sharing.
What chain ring & sprocket combination did you use? I was taking a closer look and noticed your chain looks quite loose.
TIA
Ian