Part 3, the “Shinkansen” Bullet Train, Tokyo to Kobe

Date: 3/27/2017

The trip from Tokyo to Kobe (Osaka +1) was on the “Shinkansen” or Bullet Train. I’m happy to say that the trip through Tokyo Station this time was much less traumatic than our arrival from the airport the previous Friday – this time the taxi driver knew exactly which entrance to drop us at, and from there it was only a short walk around a corner, and up some stairs to the platform.

And there on the platform, were three Shinkansen bullet trains that looked like something out of a science fiction novel: trains long and sleek, and with a nose so long they looked like they were going 100 mph standing still.

Photo 1571, Shinkansen (“bullet”) train at Tokyo Station.  Not like Amtrak.

With our conservative time planning, we arrived at the platform 2 hours before our train left, so we had plenty of time to watch the trains and people come and go. The trains are all LONG … they each have 16 cars, and at 50′ long each by my eyeball measurement each would be 800 feet long, the length of nearly 3 football fields. These guys are designed for some serious people-moving. It turns out that the Tokyo – Osaka run is has the greatest volume of any high-speed train in the world, which is logical as Tokyo and Osaka are the two most populous cities in Japan.

The trains would pull into the station with the locomotive on the forward end, then depart going backwards. It was kind of comical to see: when departing the station, the train would start out slowly, but very quickly gain speed so that when the locomotive passed us, us it was probably going 60 mph, with a conductor leaning out of a window looking “backward” to make sure that the track was all clear, holding onto his hat, because otherwise it would surely fly off instantly!

 Photo 1606, Interior of Shinkansen car

The trains operate at a moderate speed, perhaps in the 80-100 mph range, until they get out of the Tokyo/Yokohama megalopolis. You quickly pass through various Tokyo suburbs of quite middle-class-looking homes in compact communities, with some concentrations of high rise apartments or condos thrown in here and there. Once in the countryside, they open it up, but the train is so smooth, it’s hard to tell you are moving so fast. The key indicator for me was trying to take photos: by the time I got the camera to my eye, the scene was already gone! You’d have to pick out some objective of a generalized scene like a series of fields, or mountains in the distance or a bridge some distance away … then you could catch a photo.

Photo 1632, lots of fields in the countryside

The Shinkansen system operates on a totally dedicated track line, so there is no interference with freight or slower conventional trains which still run locally. The rails are continuously welded, so it is amazingly smooth and quiet which makes it hard to judge your speed. The train is capable of 200 mph (akin to the bullet trains in France), but I would guess that we were going somewhere in the range of 150 mph for most of our journey. The distance from Tokyo to Kobe is 325 miles, which is close to the distance from Portland to Vancouver, BC, and takes a similar 6½ hours to drive by car. The Shinkansen trip took 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is a calculated average of 122 mph, including 3 stops along the way. The system is the picture of efficiency … the trains leave the station on time to the second!

Photo 1689, fancy cable-stayed bridge in the countryside

After nearing insolvency in the early 1980’s, the company was privatized in 1987 and is now financially healthy. I can personally attest to this judging by the cost of our tickets: about $420 for two tickets from Tokyo to Kobe! It’s usually much cheaper to get a one-week Japan Rail pass if you use the train many times, but this way worked out cheaper for us since we were in the country for only three days, and had only one train trip. So “ouch”!

For anyone interested here are some of the technical details, the Shinkansen operates on the standard U.S. gauge of 4′-8.5″. Contrary to urban legend, this is not because it was the width of Roman chariots then passed down over centuries. It may have had more to do with the concurrent development of rail systems and equipment by the Americans and British. Also, the U.S. Civil War could have been a contributing factor because of the North’s standardization of railroad gauge, which did not exist in the South, where there was a system of three different track gauges.

The Shinkansen trains operate on 25,000 volt AC power, as opposed to 1500 volt DC power for conventional electrified trains. All axles are powered, which means that the locomotives at each end (pointed in opposite directions) are not locomotives at all … just “end cars”. All cars provide power to the train which allows faster acceleration, and no ultra-heavy locomotives.

The Shinkansen don’t slow down on curves. The maximum curvature is gentler than standard trains, and the tracks are banked more noticeably, so that sometimes you get the feeling of banking through turns like on a passenger jet.

You know that this rail line was an ultra-expensive system to build based on the number of long tunnels on this line. But they have been at it since 1964, and have worked out the finances, i.e. after initial cost overruns like we often see on large public works projects in the U.S., they ended up with a thriving system.

There are a LOT of Shinkansen trains operating. On our 2h40m trip, we must have passed a Shinkansen train going in the opposite direction every 5-10 minutes for a total of 20 or so.

The Shinkansen trains are pressure-sealed to prevent a pressure wave reaching passengers when blasting through the tunnels.

Our rail trip was considerably improved by the improving weather … the cold rain and sleet of Tokyo turned to partly cloudy and warmer weather by the time we got to Kobe, buoying our spirits in the process.

And also buoying our spirits was our hotel room in Kobe: at the port on the 21st floor overlooking downtown to the left and the bay to the right … much more spacious, and roughly half the cost of the Tokyo the hotel room!

Photo 9792, view of Kobe from our hotel room