Sixty years ago, early on the morning of October 1, 1964, a sleek blue-and-white train glided effortlessly through the urban sprawl of Tokyo, heading south along the elevated tracks toward the city of Osaka, a place in the history books.
This marked the beginning of Japan’s ‘bullet train’ era, widely regarded as the defining symbol of the country’s astonishing recovery from the trauma of World War II. Together with the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, this technological marvel of the 1960s marked the country’s return to the top of the international community.
In the sixty years since that first train, the word Shinkansen – meaning ‘new main line’ – has become an internationally recognized synonym for speed, travel efficiency and modernity.
Japan remains a world leader in railway technology. Powerful conglomerates like Hitachi and Toshiba export billions of dollars worth of trains and equipment around the world every year.
The Shinkansen network has steadily expanded since the 520-mile Tokaido Line, connecting Tokyo and Shin-Osaka, was completed in 1964. Trains travel at speeds of up to 200 mph (about 322 km per hour) on routes radiating out from the capital – north, south and east. west to cities such as Kobe, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Nagano.
The Shinkansen are not only a symbol of recovery, but also used as a tool for Japan’s continued economic development and as an instrument for change in a country bound by convention and tradition.
Pushing boundaries
Its development owes much to Japan’s early railway history. Instead of the 4ft 8.5 inch “standard” track gauge used in North America and much of Europe, a narrower track gauge of 3ft 6 inches was chosen.
Although this was cheaper and easier to build in mountainous terrain, capacity was limited and speeds slow.
Because Japan’s four main islands stretch about 1,800 miles (nearly 3,000 kilometers) from end to end, journeys between the main cities were long and often tortuous.
In 1889, the travel time from Tokyo to Osaka by train was sixteen and a half hours – better than the two to three weeks it took on foot just a few years earlier. In 1965 the Shinkansen was only three hours and ten minutes.
Demand for a “standard gauge” rail network began in the 20th century, but it was not until the 1940s that work began in earnest as part of an ambitious Asian “loop line” project to connect Japan through tunnels under the Pacific Ocean. Connect Korea and Russia. Ocean.
Defeat in World War II meant that plans for the new railway were shelved until the mid-1950s, when the Japanese economy made a strong recovery and better communications between the main cities became essential.
Although much of the network serves the most densely populated regions of Honshu, the largest of Japan’s islands, long sea tunnels allow bullet trains to travel hundreds of kilometers to Kyushu in the far south and Hokkaido in the north.
Japan’s challenging topography and widely varying climates, from the frigid winters in the north to the tropical humidity further south, have made Japanese railway engineers world leaders in finding solutions to new problems while pushing the boundaries of railway technology.
Last but not least, this is seismic activity. Japan is one of the most geologically unstable places on Earth, prone to earthquakes and tsunamis and home to about 10% of the world’s volcanoes.
While this may provide the defining image of the Shinkansen – a high-tech modern train speeding past snow-capped Mount Fuji – it also makes the safe operation of high-speed trains much more difficult.
Despite these factors, not a single passenger has been killed or injured on the Shinkansen network due to derailments in its history.
Japan’s high-speed revolution
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The next generation of bullet trains, known as ALFA-X, is currently being tested at speeds of almost 400 km/h, although the maximum service level will be “only” 225 km/h.
The defining characteristics of these and other recent Shinkansen trains are their extremely long noses, designed not to improve their aerodynamics but mainly to eliminate sonic booms caused by the ‘piston effect’ of trains entering tunnels and compression waves from the other force end. supersonic speeds.
This is especially a problem in densely populated urban areas, where noise from the Shinkansen lines has long been a source of complaints.
The experimental ALFA-X train also features new safety technology designed to reduce vibration and noise and reduce the risk of derailments in major earthquakes.
More than 10 billion passengers have now been transported quickly and comfortably by trains, with the predictability of the operation making high-speed travel seem routine and largely taken for granted.
High-speed lines around the world
In 2022, more than 295 million people rode Shinkansen trains across Japan.
It is no wonder that many other countries have followed Japan’s example and built new high-speed rail lines over the past forty years.
Perhaps the best known of these is France, which has operated its Train à Grand Vitesse (TGV) between Paris and Lyon since 1981.
Like Japan, France has successfully exported the technology to other countries, including Europe’s longest high-speed network in Spain, as well as to Belgium, South Korea, the United Kingdom and Africa’s first high-speed rail line in Morocco.
The French TGV network has been phenomenally successful, reducing long-distance travel times between the country’s major cities, creating additional capacity and making high-speed travel accessible and affordable, even commonplace for regular commuters.
Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Taiwan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia they all now operate trains on dedicated lines connecting their major cities and compete directly with airlines on domestic and international routes.
In Britain, the Eurostar high-speed trains run from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, but ‘High Speed 2’, a second route running north of London, is embroiled in controversy. What was once heralded as a ground-breaking mega-project to power an interconnected Britain for the next century has now been reduced to a 140-mile link that will hardly improve existing services.
At present, the new Hitachi-built ‘Intercity Express trains’ for British passengers are the closest thing to the bullet train, using technology derived from their Japanese counterparts, although these only reach a speed of up to Reach 200 km/h.
Meanwhile, India and Thailand are planning extensive high-speed rail networks of their own.
The rise of China’s railways
In recent years, it is China that has eclipsed the rest of the world, using its economic power to create the world’s longest high-speed rail network.
According to the country’s national railway company, the total length is close 28,000 miles from the end of 2023.
These lines are more than just a means of transportation: they provide fast connections across this vast country, boosting economic development and strengthening political and social harmonization.
Using technology that initially came from Japan and Western Europe and was then developed by the increasingly sophisticated railway industry, China has quickly made itself a leading player in high-speed rail.
It looks like this will continue, as magnetic levitation (Maglev) trains are being developed that can reach speeds of almost 400 miles per hour.
Japan has had its own experimental Maglev line since the 1970s, building a 280-kilometer line between Tokyo and Nagoya.
Because of opened in 2034it will eventually extend to Osaka, reducing the travel time to the latter to just 67 minutes.
“The Shinkansen is clearly much more than a means of transportation,” says British academic Christopher P. Hood, author of “Shinkansen: From Bullet Train to Symbol of Modern Japan.”
“It was the most powerful symbol of Japan’s post-war reconstruction and emerging industrial power, and as development continues, this is likely to remain the case for many years to come.”
Although the iconic blue and white 0-series trains from 1964 are long gone, they still represent many people’s image of what a bullet train looks like.
Their remarkable descendants are an indispensable part of the transportation infrastructure in Japan and many other countries around the world. As environmental concerns make people rethink flying, they could be about to experience a further resurgence, ushering in a new golden age for railroads. .
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