Shinkansen

Today's trivia is all about the Shinkansen (新幹線), the high speed rail network which connects most mainland cities on the main island (Honshu) together and also includes the southern island of Kyushu.

The first high speed train in the series introduced in 1964 was the Tōkaidō Shinkansen model Series 0. It had a top operational speed of 130mph and could make the 300+ mile journey in about three hours. This had a large effect on travel and tourism around the country.

Interestingly the name Shinkansen means "new trunk line" referring to the fact that the Shinkansen trains run on their own dedicated track so as not to deal with the complications of interleaving conventional slow rail traffic and high speed traffic. Dedicated tracks are either elevated or via tunnel and are only used in one direction. This makes them considerably safer than standard speed rail lines.

N500 Series interior

When travelling around Japan by Shinkansen you have a number of options:

• Speed of service: Kodama (all stops), Hikari/Sakura (Express), Nozomi/Mizuho (Super Express)
• Class: 1st Class is the Green carriage complete with complementary wet towel to freshen up.
• Smoking: Some services include a smoking carriage which as air filters to keep it pleasent for the passengers (Japan still has a high smoking rate)

Speed

The development of high speed mass transit systems has been a goal of many countries and the development of the Shinkansen in Japan was no exception. The first series was incredibly successful in cutting travel times.

For example by 1992 the Tōkaidō Shinkansen during peak times moved an average of 23,000 passengers per hour in each direction. Later Shinkansen models would cut times further to the point where it is now quicker to go by train than it is to get a plane from Tokyo to Osaka.

Of the recent developments, the E5 Series has the fastest operational speed of 200mph.

Technology

A number of important pieces of technology help to make the Shinkansen not only fast, but also safe at those speeds:

• ATC: Automatic Train Control is crucial for operation. Track side equipment records when one Shinkansen passes various points and signals this information to the next train in line to control its speed.
• Each carriage in the train (16 carriages) has its own electric motor which improves overall acceleration and reduces weight versus a single large engine block.
• The nose cone design and overall dimensions of the train are designed to reduce weight and cross sectional area. Of particular importance is the nose cone design when entering tunnels. Earlier models would produce a shock wave which exited the tunnel as a loud booming noise making them unpopular with the locals. The latest platypus nose cone shape reduces this greatly.
• The shell of the Shinkansen consists of a carefully welded aluminum design to reduce weight. This reduction in strength is permissible because of the greatly reduced crash risk due to dedicated lines.
• Lightweight bogies and suspension are also possible because of the high quality track which reduces wear on the train.

Maglev

China: Shanghai Transrapid

Despite decades of research into maglev technology there are currently only two commercial maglev transit systems in operation. One is the Chinese Shanghai Transrapid system which has an operational top speed of 268mph over an 18.5 mile track based on German developed technology.

Japan: Linimo

The other maglev system is the Japanese Linimo which operates at low speeds on a 9 mile stretch of track.

Japan: Chūō Shinkansen

Building high speed maglev track and infrastructure is very expensive. Japan is in the process of developing the Chūō Shinkansen which will operate over a track length of 178 miles long making it considerably longer than either current operational maglev sysytem. It will have an impressive top operational speed of 314mph.

There are a number of ways of generating the magnetic levitation. In the Chūō Shinkansen it uses an attraction and repulsion system with super conducting magnets in the side of the track.

Future of Rail Travel

Proposal by Terraspan to combine mass transit and power distribution grid

The development of the Shinkansen has been a history of making the train technology more compact and lighter to gain the speed improvements. With magnetic levitation you remove rail friction from the equation as well. I would suggest the future of mass tranist may then seek to remove air resistance as well.

If a maglev tunnel can be successfully de-pressurised and maintained, this would allow the train to overcome air resistance and opens the potential to travel very quickly indeed. Potential estimates go up as high as 4000mph according to one such proposal by Terraspan.

The downsides are not insignificant however. Aside from the cost of building such infrastructure, the largest concern is around safety. If the tunnel re-pressurises for any number of reasons the train would hit the air like a brick wall. If the interior of the train lost pressure all the passengers would have a really bad day.

The only person knowingly exposed to a hard vacuum was during the Apollo era space suit testing when an air tube came loose on a suit during a vacuum chamber test.

References:

Wikipedia Shinkanen

Wikipedia High Speed Rail

Financial Times

Documentary on Shinkansen

Shinkansen Turns 50

Trains of Japan

From my travels on the various Tokyo metropolitan train services I noted a number of interesting things.

Lots of Trains

The metropolitan Tokyo service is extensive

First of all, there are lots of them. The railways in Tokyo appear to be serviced by many different companies including the off shoots of the JNR (Japanese National Railway) which was privatised in 1987. In many cases there will be multiple train operators servicing the same route or line which leads to competition for customers. e.g. Narita airport is serviced by two high speed services into central Tokyo.

I was also surprised to discover that Tokyo is one of seven cities in Japan which has its own underground services. The others being Fukuoka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka, Sapporo, Sendai and Yokohama.

It then follows that a lot of people use this large service. Japan is only second to India for the number of passengers who use rail services each year at 7.3 billion passengers per year (from a population of 127 million gives an average 54 journeys per person per year)

Really Punctual

There is a popular conception Japanese railways are among the most punctual in the world. I found this to be the case whilst I was there. Metro services were really regular every few minutes.

This video shows some of the supporting services and training that goes into being a train driver.

The high speed services are also equally on time. The average delay on the Tokaido Shinkansen in 2012 was only 0.6 minutes. Impressive for a service that departs every few minutes from each station. For example 323 high speed Shinkansen services depart Tokyo each day. See this video for detail on how a Shinkansen is cleaned in 7 minutes.

Tokaido Shinkansen (東海道新幹線) connects Japan's three largest metropolitan areas (Tokyo/Yokohama, Nagoya and Osaka/Kyoto)

Clean and Polite

The metro trains I traveled on were certainly very clean and spacious. Even looking through historical trains at the train museum I noted that spacious and comfortable were common themes even on the oldest carriages.

They also have a fair amount of public information signs advising people how to behave on the train as you might expect for a busy train.

See here for more Japanese humour

Train Drivers

The train drivers and conductors I noted seemed to talk to themselves and do a lot of pointing (even the driver on the model railway did it too).

This is part of their training on avoiding making mistakes whilst they are operating the vehicle. When performing actions in the train, each is accompanied by describing the action and pointing. This technique has been in use in Japanese railways for over a hundred years and has been found to reduce accidents by 85% according to the Railway Technical Research Institute.

Modern

We got ourselves some pre-paied contactless payment cards called Pasmo which we used whilst we were there. Just like Oyster in London, however I later found that there is also a completely compatible and competing scheme called Suica which you can also use. These payment systems extend further than just rail travel to include shopping in some shops, vending machines and at the airport as well.

Some handrails also had braile on them as well.

Another detail I noted was the bird sounds on the platforms. The platforms in Tokyo that I stood on all played a recorded sound of a bird tweeting. This was placed at both entrances to the platform, and I concluded was a blind hearing aid.

Conclusion

Overall I think Japan is quite pleased with its rail network, and it was certainly a good experience to use it. My son was particularly impressed to find a Japan railway toy in his happy meal.

References

Rail Transport in Japan

Pointing and Calling

Pre-Paid Cards

Bird Sounds