Japan: From bullets to magic leviathan

[John Ashworth]

High-speed rail in Japan: From bullets to magic leviathan

* Justin McCurry in Tokyo
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 5 August 2009 23.11 BST

Travellers in Japan have enjoyed the luxury of high-speed rail travel for more than four decades. The first bullet train, the shinkansen, was introduced just in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 1964.

Both events were seen as symbolic of Japan's economic recovery and global acceptance less than 20 years after the end of the second world war.

The shinkansen network, operated by Japan Railways, now connects most major Japanese cities via almost 1,550 miles of track.

While the early trains reached up to 130mph, the latest version, the N700 series, which entered service in 2007, reaches speeds of 186mph.

The new E5 series, to be introduced in 2011, will reach 199mph, making it possible to travel from Tokyo to Aomori – 419 miles away – in three hours.

But if the aim of Japan's high-speed rail revolution was to supplant domestic air travel, it has failed. The archipelago's geographical spread, from Hokkaido in the north, to Okinawa, in the south, means that both have, for the most part, been able to coexist. Crudely put, the locomotive is better for train journeys of less than three hours – more than that the plane takes over.

More than 150 million people a year use the bullet train service between Tokyo and Osaka – the most popular route – while Japan Airlines (JAL) flew 3.9 million people from Tokyo to Osaka and Kobe airports in the same period.

In 2020 Japan plans to launch its next generation of bullet trains: a service that will connect Tokyo and Nagoya in around 40 minutes using maglev – magnetic levitation – trains which are much faster than conventional trains.