SHINKASEN — Japanese SuperExpress
I knew about Japanese “Bullet Train” already prior to my trip but the day trip from Tokyo to Kyoto was not motivated only to experience ride in the fastest train on planet. Final destination of the trip — Kyoto — was not only for more than 1,000 years capitol of Japanese Empire but Kyoto as one of the very few Japanese cities escape American bombing during the WWII. That’s why one can find strange mixture of contemporary and rare historical architecture all over the city.
Shinkazen is story of different kind. First superfast trains started to be used in Japan for daily transportation already in the middle of 60’s. Frequency of trains today is enormous. Shinkasen is leaving from Tokyo every 10 minutes for trip across Japan in North and South direction. Each train has 16 cars and 1,323 seats capacity. Usually train is operating in speed 280-320 km/hr. However during the testing in 1996 speed 443 km/hr. was achieved and in 2003 it traveled in “world record’ speed of 581 km/hr.
Shinkasen transports annually over 160 million passengers and totally it transported more than 6 billion passengers (even tickets are definitely not cheap — round trip Tokyo — Kyoto — Tokyo was US$ 340). However trip was experience to remember. Distance Tokyo — Kyoto which is about 540 km we managed in 2 hours and 8 minutes including of 4 stops!
Well check the movie so you can see how does it feel to travel in speed peaking over 300 km.
AloJapan.com