Japan's Shinkansen Bullet Trains Celebrate 50th Anniversary

AmiMoJo writes Japan's Shinkansen bullet-train has marked its 50th anniversary. The first Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka debuted on October 1st, 1964, ahead of the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Since then, the Shinkansen has run about 2 billion kilometers, or the equivalent of 50,000 times around the earth. It has carried about 5.6 billion passengers. The latest series to enter operation, the E5, operates at 320km/h.

Hai!

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Shinkansen is awesome. Amazingly smooth, unbelievably fast. I had the pleasure of riding one between Tokyo and Kyoto earlier this year. According to my phone's GPS, I topped out at 173mph (278km/h). It's amazing to me that they've been running for a half century already, while in the States we're nowhere near this level of rail technology, even today.

Also, hai means yes in Japanese. You hear it very frequently there. If someone's on their cell phone, oftentimes all you hear is "Hai! Hai, hai, hai. Hai!" What an agreeble culture!

Re:And still nothing in the US

[Ichijo]

The SF-to LA run alone is projected to cost $300 Billion

No, it's projected to cost $53.4 billion in 2011 dollars [ca.gov]. Meanwhile, it would cost $123 to 138 billion in 2011 dollars [ca.gov] to move the same number of people by air and highways (4,295 to 4,652 new lane-miles of highway plus 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways). Also, like every HSR system in the world that has been open for at least a few years, California's won't require any operating subsidies, unlike airports and freeways. So high-speed rail is a really good deal.

Punctuality.

[crazyvas]

One thing that has always impressed me about the Shinkansen is its near obscene punctuality:

Quote from http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Shi... [wikiwand.com] :
The Shinkansen is very reliable thanks to several factors, including its near-total separation from slower traffic. In 2012, JR Central reported that the Shinkansen's average delay from schedule per train was 36 seconds. This includes delays due to uncontrollable causes, such as natural disasters.[14] The record, in 1997, was 18 seconds.