The Shinkansen , colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to … See more

Japan was the first country to build dedicated railway lines for high-speed travel. Because of the mountainous terrain, the existing network consisted of 1,067 mm See more

To enable high-speed operation, Shinkansen uses a range of advanced technology compared with conventional rail, achieving not … See more

Originally intended to carry passenger trains by day and freight trains by night, the Shinkansen lines carried exclusively passengers for the first five and a half decades of their … See more

Shinkansen (新幹線) in Japanese means 'new trunk line' or 'new main line', but this word is used to describe both the railway lines the trains run … See more

The main Shinkansen lines are:
In practice, the Tokaido, San'yō, and Kyushu lines form a contiguous west/southbound line from Tokyo, as train services run between the Tokaido and San'yō lines and between the San'yō and Kyushu lines, … See more

Trains are up to sixteen cars long. With each car measuring 25 m (82 ft) in length, the longest trains are 400 m (1⁄4 mile) end to end. Stations are similarly long to accommodate these trains. Some of Japan's high-speed maglev trains are considered … See more