Shinkansen Story

[Anthony]

Therich history of the Japanese train system is punctuated by a number monumental events and improvements to the experience. The first rail lines in Japan opened in 1872, but these steam-powered trains were a far cry from the speeds attainable today. Planning for the bullet train system began even before World War II, with land being acquired as early as the late 1930s.

Inauguration, 1964. A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the railway project in 1959, near what would be Mishima Station on the Tokaido Line. In just five years, the first train line was completed. On October 1, 1964, the line opened to commuter traffic at 6 AM. The Hikari bullet train made its debut, with one train departing from Tokyo Station and the other from Shin-Osaka Station. These 0 Series Shinkansen models remained in use until 1999.

The Sanyo Shinkansen, 1975. The Sanyo Shinkansen bullet trains connect the two largest cities in western Japan, Osaka and Fukuoka. This line extended the Tokaido Line from Tokyo, making it possible to travel from Tokyo to Fukuoka in about five hours. Dining cars were also added to many trains.

The Green Class, 1985. The year 1985 saw the release of a new type of Shinkansen train, known as the 100 Series. Green Class cars became available on these trains, giving passengers the option to enjoy a first-class travel experience.

The Akita and Nagano Shinkansen, 1997. The Akita is a mini-shinkansen E6 Series train. Creating the mini shinkansen line included the need to convert existing narrow-gauge tracks, used by non-shinkansen trains, into narrower rails. These lines meet other Shinkansen tracks in certain areas. These trains run at slower speeds than their full-sized counterparts, but reach areas not previously serviced by bullet trains.

By 2006, the mini-shinkansen trains had served over twenty million passengers. The Nagano Shinkansen further connected areas in the Nagano Prefecture. Both of these trains were operational in time for the 1998 winter Olympics.

The Hokkaido Shinkansen, 2016. The Hokkaido Shinkansen is unique in its use of an undersea tunnel, called the Seikan Tunnel. The tunnel thus connects the northern island of Hokkaido with the main island of Honshu. Future plans include connecting this line to Sapporo by 2031.

The future of the Japanese Shinkansen trains is bright indeed. For decades, Japanese engineers have been working on maglev technology, which uses superconducting magnets to literally levitate the train above its tracks. The lack of friction allows the Maglev train to safely reach speeds in excess of those attainable by the current Shinkansen bullet trains.

The Maglev was tested successfully as early as the 1990s, and construction on the first commercial Maglev line began in 2009. The line between Tokyo and Nagoya is expected to open in 2027, with an extension to Osaka opening by 2045.

The original Tokaido Shinkansen, connecting Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, three of Japan's largest cities, is one of the world's busiest high-speed rail lines. In the one-year period preceding March 2017, it carried 159 million passengers,[8] and since its opening more than five decades ago, it has transported more than 6.4 billion total passengers.[3] At peak times, the line carries up to 16 trains per hour in each direction with 16 cars each (1,323-seat capacity and occasionally additional standing passengers) with a minimum headway of three minutes between trains.[9]

The Shinkansen network of Japan had the highest annual passenger ridership (a maximum of 353 million in 2007) of any high-speed rail network until 2011, when the Chinese high-speed railway network surpassed it at 370 million passengers annually, reaching over 2.3 billion annual passengers in 2019.[10]

Japan was the first country to build dedicated railway lines for high-speed travel. Because of the mountainous terrain, the existing network consisted of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) narrow-gauge lines, which generally took indirect routes and could not be adapted to higher speeds due to technical limitations of narrow-gauge rail. For example, if a standard-gauge rail has a curve with a maximum speed of 145 km/h (90 mph), the same curve on narrow-gauge rail will have a maximum allowable speed of 130 km/h (81 mph).[13] Consequently, Japan had a greater need for new high-speed lines than countries where the existing standard gauge or broad gauge rail system had more upgrade potential.

Among the key people credited with the construction of the first Shinkansen are Hideo Shima, the Chief Engineer, and Shinji Sogō, the first President of Japanese National Railways (JNR) who managed to persuade politicians to back the plan. Other significant people responsible for its technical development were Tadanao Miki, Tadashi Matsudaira, and Hajime Kawanabe based at the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), part of JNR. They were responsible for much of the technical development of the first line, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen. All three had worked on aircraft design during World War II.[14]

The popular English name bullet train is a literal translation of the Japanese term dangan ressha (弾丸列車), a nickname given to the project while it was initially discussed in the 1930s. The name stuck because of the original 0 Series Shinkansen's resemblance to a bullet and its high speed.

The Shinkansen name was first formally used in 1940 for a proposed standard gauge passenger and freight line between Tokyo and Shimonoseki that would have used steam and electric locomotives with a top speed of 200 km/h (120 mph). Over the next three years, the Ministry of Railways drew up more ambitious plans to extend the line to Beijing (through a tunnel to Korea) and even Singapore, and build connections to the Trans-Siberian Railway and other trunk lines in Asia. These plans were abandoned in 1943 as Japan's position in World War II worsened. However, some construction did commence on the line; several tunnels on the present-day Shinkansen date to the war-era project.[15]

Following the end of World War II, high-speed rail was forgotten for several years while traffic of passengers and freight steadily increased on the conventional Tōkaidō Main Line along with the reconstruction of Japanese industry and economy. By the mid-1950s the Tōkaidō Line was operating at full capacity, and the Ministry of Railways decided to revisit the Shinkansen project. In 1957, Odakyu Electric Railway introduced its 3000 series SE Romancecar train, setting a world speed record of 145 km/h (90 mph) for a narrow gauge train.[16] This train gave designers the confidence that they could safely build an even faster standard gauge train. Thus the first Shinkansen, the 0 series, was built on the success of the Romancecar.[citation needed]

In the 1950s, the Japanese national attitude was that railways would soon be outdated and replaced by air travel and highways as in the United States.[17] However, Shinji Sogō, President of Japanese National Railways, insisted strongly on the possibility of high-speed rail, and the Shinkansen project was implemented.[18]

Government approval came in December 1958, and construction of the first segment of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka started in April 1959. The cost of constructing the Shinkansen was at first estimated at nearly 200 billion yen,[a] which was raised in the form of a government loan, railway bonds and a low-interest loan of US$80 million from the World Bank. Initial estimates, however, were understated and the actual cost was about 380 billion yen.[19] As the budget shortfall became clear in 1963, Sogo resigned to take responsibility.[20]

The Tōkaidō Shinkansen began service on 1 October 1964, in time for the first Tokyo Olympics.[22] The conventional Limited Express service took six hours and 40 minutes from Tokyo to Osaka, but the Shinkansen made the trip in just four hours, shortened to three hours and ten minutes by 1965. It enabled day trips between Tokyo and Osaka, the two largest metropolises in Japan, significantly changed the style of business and life of the Japanese people, and increased new traffic demand. The service was an immediate success, reaching the 100 million passenger mark in less than three years on 13 July 1967, and one billion passengers in 1976. Sixteen-car trains were introduced for Expo '70 in Osaka. With an average of 23,000 passengers per hour in each direction in 1992, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen was the world's busiest high-speed rail line.[23] As of 2014, the train's 50th anniversary, daily passenger traffic rose to 391,000 which, spread over its 18-hour schedule, represented an average of just under 22,000 passengers per hour.[24]

The first Shinkansen trains, the 0 series, ran at speeds of up to 210 km/h (130 mph), later increased to 220 km/h (137 mph). The last of these trains, with their classic bullet-nosed appearance, were retired on 30 November 2008. A driving car from one of the 0 series trains was donated by JR West to the National Railway Museum in York, United Kingdom in 2001.[25]

The Tōkaidō Shinkansen's rapid success prompted an extension westward to Okayama, Hiroshima and Fukuoka (the San'yō Shinkansen), which was completed in 1975.[26] Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was an ardent supporter of the Shinkansen, and his government proposed an extensive network paralleling most existing trunk lines. Two new lines, the Tōhoku Shinkansen and Jōetsu Shinkansen, were built following this plan. Many other planned lines were delayed or scrapped entirely as JNR slid into debt throughout the late 1970s, largely because of the high cost of building the Shinkansen network. By the early 1980s, the company was practically insolvent, leading to its privatization in 1987.

Development of the Shinkansen by the privatised regional JR companies has continued, with new train models developed, each generally with its own distinctive appearance (such as the 500 series introduced by JR West). Since 2014, Shinkansen trains run regularly at speeds up to 320 km/h (200 mph) on the Tōhoku Shinkansen; only the Shanghai maglev train, China Railway High-speed networks, and the Indonesian Jakarta-Bandung High-speed railway have commercial services that operate faster.[27][28][needs update]

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