Japan: 50 Years of the Bullet Train

Above, the interior of a shinkansen car. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

As mentioned previously, 2014 (specifically October) marks 50 years since Japan's shinkansens (bullet trains) have been in service.

We have an article from the U.K. Telegraph that takes a look at the shinkansen by Joanna Symons, who took a tour of Japan aboard the shinkansen earlier this year.

She begins her article with:

Fifty years ago this October, a year after Dr Beeching’s first report had sounded the death knell for much of Britain’s railway system, a revolution in train travel was taking place on the far side of the world. 

As visitors flocked to Japan for the Olympic Games (held in October to avoid the summer heat), Japan’s first Shinkansen, or bullet train, slid out of Tokyo station and gathered speeds of up to 130mph en route for Osaka, heralding a new age of high-speed rail. 

The Japanese were well ahead of the game. It was 13 years before Italy followed suit, then France with the TGV. But although high-speed trains now glide across hills and plains from Spain to China, Japan’s futuristic-looking bullet train retains an aura that our grime-caked intercity expresses can never capture. 

To read the full article, go here.