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Japan's Shinkansen Bullet Trains Celebrate 50th Anniversary
AmiMoJo writes Japan's Shinkansen bullet-train has marked its 50th anniversary. The first Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka debuted on October 1st, 1964, ahead of the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Since then, the Shinkansen has run about 2 billion kilometers, or the equivalent of 50,000 times around the earth. It has carried about 5.6 billion passengers. The latest series to enter operation, the E5, operates at 320km/h.
Shinkansen is awesome. Amazingly smooth, unbelievably fast. I had the pleasure of riding one between Tokyo and Kyoto earlier this year. According to my phone's GPS, I topped out at 173mph (278km/h). It's amazing to me that they've been running for a half century already, while in the States we're nowhere near this level of rail technology, even today.
Also, hai means yes in Japanese. You hear it very frequently there. If someone's on their cell phone, oftentimes all you hear is "Hai! Hai, hai, hai. Hai!" What an agreeble culture!
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
The average speed of a train in Canada has slowed significantly down from where they were in the 1930's. My family recently took a few trips to a location that is 2.5 hours of driving and the scheduled time for the train is a bit over 3 hours. Each time it is usually around the 4 hour mark and sometimes has exceeded 6. Plus major rail lines are being ripped up and turned into walking trails and the runs are far less frequent on the remaining ones. The areas with the removed train services have sunk into economic stagnation.
You might be thinking that we have a marvellous road system or something but, nope, our potholes have potholes (pictures available) and our most productive fishing and farming areas have a tortuous routes to get to major markets.
This is fairly typical of most of Canada with the exception of a tiny corridor running by the Ottawa area (our federal capital).
No, it's projected to cost $53.4 billion in 2011 dollars. Meanwhile, it would cost $123 to 138 billion in 2011 dollars to move the same number of people by air and highways (4,295 to 4,652 new lane-miles of highway plus 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways). Also, like every HSR system in the world that has been open for at least a few years, California's won't require any operating subsidies, unlike airports and freeways. So high-speed rail is a really good deal.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Not to sound too pedantic, Shinkansen started out far from 320km/h. In fact, the original "bullet trains" back in 1965 were limited to 210km/h (about 130mph y'all non metric folks). The mighty Penn RR had GG1s pulling trains from NYC to DC at 100mph around the same time. Back in (my beloved old) Europe, SNCF class BB 9200 electric locomotives were pulling 200 km/h (120mph) trains in 1967 on part of the way from Paris to Toulouse; in Germany, Class 110 were pulling express trains at speeds similar to that of the GG1s.
Now, if anything should be remembered from JR of yesteryear was their bet against air and road traffic. It truly was against all odds that JR executives fought for proper rail infrastructure. For a completely new standard-gauge network, that did not exist. Unlike other countries, Japan's high speed standard-gauge network was built from scratch, with connections to the narrow-gauge network being done in the late 90's. This high-speed network has since then been upgraded to 320km/h operations over the past decades. Regardless of top speed, this is what Shinkansen should be remembered for: 20/20 hindsight.
As a Frenchman proud the national TGV network, I tip my hat off the Japanese engineers and executives who envisioned and built the Shinkansen.
One thing that has always impressed me about the Shinkansen is its near obscene punctuality:
Quote from http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shi... :
The Shinkansen is very reliable thanks to several factors, including its near-total separation from slower traffic. In 2012, JR Central reported that the Shinkansen's average delay from schedule per train was 36 seconds. This includes delays due to uncontrollable causes, such as natural disasters.[14] The record, in 1997, was 18 seconds.