How This Train Changed The World

In 1964, Japan unveiled the Shinkansen - a new high speed railway connecting the country’s two largest cities (in the 1960's), Tokyo and Osaka. Travelling at speeds in excess of 120 mph (200 km/h), the new specially designed Shinkansen trains had the highest service speeds in the world.

But the Shinkansen project’s success had been anything but assured. Over five years of construction, the cost of building the Shinkansen had ballooned, nearly doubling over the original estimate to nearly ¥400 Billion. Vocal critics within Japan dismissed the Shinkansen project as destined for failure. Only a year before the new line opened, the director-general of the Japanese National Railways Construction Department described it as the “height of madness”. In particular, he criticized the decision to use a wider gauge track (standard gauge), which would make the Shinkansen incompatible with the rest of Japan’s narrow gauge network.

Outside of Japan, observers looked on with a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. The 1960’s was the age of the jet airliner and automobile. Many countries in the west were focusing on infrastructure projects to accommodate the enormous growth of both these forms of transportation. The United States in particular, was pouring billions of dollars into building new interstate highways and country’s rail network was actually shrinking. Railways were seen as simply too slow and inconvenient to compete with automobiles and aircraft. Many predicted that passenger trains would be extinct or near-extinct by the end of the 20th century.

But the opening of the Shinkansen changed the way the world viewed railways. The Shinkansen demonstrated that trains were capable of being the fastest mode of travel for intercity trips (faster than automobile and air travel). The Shinkansen was the fastest way to travel the 320 miles (515 km) distance from Tokyo to Osaka when total door-door travel times were taken into account. Within just the first 3 years, the Shinkansen carried more than 100 million passengers.

The Japanese helped inspire other countries to develop their own high speed networks, like France’s TGV which entered service in the early 1980's. The enormous success of the original Shinkansen line spurred the construction of new Shinkansen lines westward. Over the course of the next half century, the network would be expanded to reach nearly every corner of Japan.

#Trains #BulletTrain #Shinkansen

Select footage courtesy the AP Archive

Special thanks to Nick Arehart for helping clean up our audio:

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[briantien]

"average delays measured in seconds"


Sydney trains delays are measured in days.

[theredhatchback]

Few years back in Assam (India) I was incredibly thrilled to find the train I was about to board arrived 3 mins early!
Later after enquiry I found it was actually 23 hrs 57 mins late.
Lessons learnt. 🙏

[mikhailman]

British trains delays are measured in "CANCELED".

[madpistol]

"Since 1964 the Shinkansen has moved over 10 billion people... without a single passenger casualty."

Not gonna lie... that is damn impressive.

[mikumikuareka]

I was born and spent half of my childhood in Japan. And Shinkansen amazed and confused me at the same time. For example, my dad took me with him to visit my granny from Osaka. Usually, we were traveling by car, but that time he decided to use Shinkansen. And after we reached the destination I was pretty sure he's lying to me because there's no way we could reach Osaka in such a small amount of time. It was such a remarkable experience especially for 5yo me back then.

So knowing that you usually cover how another new ambitious technology failed, I almost had a heart attack when I saw in recommended that you covered Shinkansens story too :D

[yohannessulistyo]

Tried this train last May. The train is already on the platform, a bunch of passengers are neatly and patiently queueing except... "why the door is not opening? What are they waiting for?"
Then I looked at the watch, it is still 5 seconds to 8:33. Then we playfully count, 5...4...3...2...1... aaand the door opens exactly at 8:33:00. Yes this is that particular bullet train service in that particular station.

[viniciusdesouzamaia]

All the comments are about train delays. Nobody talks about safety.

Cars: tens of thousands of deaths every year in each country. Hundreds of thousands of debilitating injuries.
Shinkansen: 60 years with no deaths or injuries.

[milo]

Meanwhile in Serbia :

" When will the train arrive ?"
"Soon, they started building the train tracks..."

[alexice]

"Average delay is measured in seconds" - in Romania, you born in a train and you die in that train

[munenex]

In my country, train delays are timed by calendar not stopwatch.

[marxel]

Back here from the maglev train video!

Japan will do it again!

[billy]

Conductor: Lady’s and gentlemen, we are sadly delayed
Passengers: by how much
Conductor: 10 seconds

[vcguerrilla]

Japan: average delay measured in seconds
Europe: average delay measured in minutes
India: average delaymeasured in hours
USA: average delay measured in football fields

[ryanm.]

What I love about the Japanese culture is that they don’t half ass jobs
Their maintenance records are unmatched. They take the trains off the lines and inspect them properly with no crushing pressure of tight deadlines and loss of profit unlike say in the U.K. where they have knowingly put defective trains onto the tracks to save money

[mr.salami]

Lets take a moment to realize how good this mans animations are, his aircraft, boat, and train 3d models are astonishing!

[brandonlikejesus]

I once took the Shinkansen from Osaka to Nagoya just for supper with my friends because we felt like some Miso Katsu (that cities specialty). Since the trains always run exactly on time, we were comfortable making our reservations only a few minutes prior to our arrival, and we arrived at the restaurant right on the dot. Japan is truly amazing!

[rajnishmishra]

Japan is prime example of "keep your head down and work hard, your success will speak for you ."

[georgexatz]

"Average delay is measured in seconds"
In Greece average delay is measured in "It will either come in 20 mins or not this week"

[robertoenduro]

Fun fact, the Shinkansen transports more people/year than all US airlines combined. The same applies to profit/year. Not bad for a "outdated" form of transportation...

[marsal]

Mesurement instruments for train delays:

Japan: Chronometer

Germany: Calender