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With 400m trains running up to every 3 minutes, at maximum speeds of over 300 km/h, Japan’s high speed rail network is a marvel. Come with me as we explore this very special system!
Special thanks to JR Urbane Network & @NonstopEurotrip for helping with this video!
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Ever wondered why your city’s transit just doesn’t seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
26 Comments
As someone with family in Shikoku, I'm sad that the island doesn't have any Shinkansen connections
What isn’t mentioned is that it’s mega-reliable – the Tohoku Shinkansen averages 30 seconds lateness over a YEAR. No other country comes close. However, it is also very expensive which is why air travel even over shorter distances is still popular.
Can you explain Turkish high speed rail.
Who thinks about Spain or France when they think about High Speed Trains? I think only Europeans do. The real High Speed Train action is in Asia, specifically Japan and China. All other countries are not even close.
Thank you so much for sharing Japanese bullet trains!! I am quite proud of your sharing Japanese bullets trains! I think they are the best trains on the world. I am looking forward to watching your chanel regarding Japanese trains from now on!
I'm from Spain and although we have a very good system, I think obviously Japan is the king of high speed. You can see the work and dedication in every detail of the system.
GREAT video. I've been looking forward to it since the Tokyo urban video.
Me like fast train
I want a 500kmh maglev between Perth and Sydney also going through Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra, and then onwards to Brisbane, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns. I will sleep on it… 😴
As a Japanese I am humble as you like Shinkansen (sorry for bad english)
I wish the Australian government had just contracted JR to build a Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney-Brisbane high speed line 40 years ago instead of just running studies into a east coast HSR every few years.
The Italy high speed rail was pretty awesome, but nothing compares to the Shinkansen! Riding it is a sublime experience.
74 flights on a random Tuesday between Tokyo (Haneda or Narita) and Osaka (Kansai, Itami or Kobe). 70-110 min flight + 30-60 min ground transport on each end between airport and city center. Between 2h10m and 3h50m (plus connections and airport formalities) for flight options.
220 Shinkansen between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka (Feb 2023 timetable). 2h30m-4h travel time (depending on Nozomi, Hikari or Kodama service).
If there wasn't some benefit to getting the flight (such as it being part of an international ticket), the Shinkansen is the better option.
17:22 Passengers traveling between Kyoto – Osaka as well as Kawasaki – Tokyo are much better served by regular narrow gauge service if using JR. Osaka and Kawasaki do NOT have their main station served by Shinkansen, so everyone needs at least one transfer and time loss due to transfer to get there. Instead, the narrow gauge service is much more frequent on a variety of train sets offering budget to "luxury" service, and no transfer needed.
Not sure how true the first comment is. Everyone thinks of Japan when they hear "high speed rail".
The Tokaido Shinkansen is the world's fastest "subway". Its operation mode is just like a subway line though its speed is about 280KPH
Interesting video as always! I only miss information of on board services and a bit more specific info on frequencies and timetabling.
And just for fun: the recent movie "Bullet train" also plays on the Tohoku Shinkansen and is based on a Japanese novel which I highly recommend 🙂(only read the novel, didn't watch the movie yet)
thank you 😀
Ever thought of a video on italian high speed rail?
Man, if the Chūō Shinkansen wasn't using Maglev, maybe they would have enough money to take it all the way to Tokyo Station to allow through operation with the Tōhoku Shinkansen. Just another reason to be annoyed by the choice to use Maglev.
Hi there! I live in Halifax NS, and we are struggling to get our city council to do anything on transit issues. We are the fastest growing city in Canada, but they refuse to put in high order transit in the core even though we've needed it for decades.
I'd love it if you could do a video on this or at least help our city try and make it so people can actually get around without a car. It's 10 minutes to my work by car but 1.75 hours by bus because there aren't any intercommunity connections. Bus service in the most populus routes is being cut when the busses are often so packed you can't get anyone else on there.
The issue is, no one is paying attention to us, and because of that, the city council gets away with it. Any eyes we can get on this issue would help make it so this city stops building new interchanges but won't put trolleys in (even though we are proud of our trolley history, apparently even though our population is triple that of when they were running, we can't have them now).
Please help, we're begging for any help we can on this
Japan also has long-distance railways, exceeding 6,000 km in the Tokyo metropolitan area alone, which exceeds the total length of neighboring South Korea. Furthermore, since the track is separated from the high-speed rail, it is not affected by mutual delays or cargo. In addition, since the tracks are separated, they serve as mutual backups in the event of a disaster or emergency, minimizing the impact on logistics. The division of labor allows the Shinkansen to be the fastest and most efficient way to transport large amounts of goods between major cities, while conventional lines can concentrate on passenger and freight transport over vast areas. Also, construction costs were low, so we were able to lay a railway network approaching 30,000 km nationwide.
That was great Reece. Excellent as always. However, as it first opened in 1964, while you never mentioned it, while these is an Earthquake warning system, I assume there is also a Godzilla warning system. He was quite prolific then and I’m sure they made some allowance for this.
I would love to see you do a video on the massive transit projects in Tel Aviv, it’s construction on par with Chinese metros but in a country of just 9 million. I think it would be super interesting to explore!
It's crazy that California can't make a high speed rail directly up the coast "because of the mountains", yet Japan has been doing it for 50+ years.
Also, maybe the success of the Shinkansen isn't due to some kind of random geographical luck of Osaka and Tokyo etc being so close together… perhaps it's that those cities became such huge economies because the train network came first?
I'm gonna make an educated guess that a significant portion of flights from Osaka to Tokyo exist solely for international connections outbound from Tokyo. In that scenario it makes a lot more sense to go KIX-NRT-International by plane than by train.