Japanese Trains Have Always Been One Step Ahead

[zakouraa]

Just got back from a trip to Japan, the public transportation is something to dream of! Unbelievably affordable compared to even just car insurance, let alone gas and maintenance, plus I can read or watch movies throughout the transit. The bullet trains are cool and all, but it's really the dense local train/subway/bus network that makes everything feel so seamless.

[gregzeroa]

I had that bullet train engine only as a kid in HO scale recently just happen to see one in a fle market for $2 ...engine only ....like reunited with a old friend ....still amazing that the actual train is From the 60s ..for years I never thought that, , , I thought 1980s at minimum.

[Volfied]

"It levitates bullet trains from Tokyo to Osaka!" - M.Bison

[DABinCHRIST]

These high speed rails make sense for these smaller countries, but it's insanely expensive to do in really large countries

[SeverityOne]

It wasn't the first high-speed train in the world: it was the first dedicated high-speed line. That's what Shinkansen means: new trunk line.

[RonakDhakan]

0:19 Just "Sixty" kilometres per hour?

[lamarzimmermanmennonitefar]

Its like we could hire them for our lines

[RtB]

If you want to see something - anything - done well, go to Japan. Busses, trains, hospitals, schools, community service, you name it. If you haven’t been there you can’t understand.

[JohnPierrotti]

Here we are in the great U S of A. Wonder WTF happen. Old folks running something so big. Let us take it back!

[dougdougsnacks]

Damn, it would be interesting, if 4 white men decided to play _Capture the Flag across Japan_ using these Shinkanzen lines sometimes later in the future.

[saqibmudabbar]

The last scene was Shanghai Maglev not Shitkangshawn

[TrangleC]

To be fair, Japan is playing on easy mode when it comes to trains. They have the great advantage that their country is banana shaped and that all the major cities are lined up along the east coast like pearls on a string. You can basically connect the whole country with one rail line from one end of the banana to the other.

Building a high speed rail network that actually is a network and connects spread out cities over a more square shaped country is much more impressive, which is why I always said that the central European (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) rail network is much more impressive and underrated because it isn't as flashy as the Japanese one.

France is also often praised for its high speed rail, but they too aren't doing what their central European neighbors are doing. The French system is basically star-shaped, with a bunch of lines running in and out of Paris, connecting the capital to other parts of the country, but hardly any connections between those other parts of the country, which don't run through Paris.

[DMTHOTH]

they were ahead for 'commercializing', not inventing. bullet train was firstly developed by german.. high speed maglev is also firstly developed by german.

[aussiedave]

Did they lose the war, if so they have won something else.

[martynbrown]

Wait, what? Always at the forefront? They didn't invent the thing!

[persassy]

WHAT THE FUCK IS A KILOMETER 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🔥🔥🔥

[tomwang]

Ireland is a part of the British isles!