In 1964 Japan unveils the Shinkansen Bullet Train, and it has the Japanese
glued to their televisions. As news helicopters filming the train struggle
to keep up, cheers erupt in living rooms across the nation. The Shinkansen is a
powerful symbol of Japan's post-war recovery. But it's also groundbreaking.
Because at the dawn of the Jet Age, when air travel and cars seem destined to
replace everything else, the lowly train is about to make a comeback.
In the 19th century, the locomotive and steamship replaced the horse and sailing
ship as the primary movers of humanity. In the 20th century, it seemed almost
certain that the automobile and aircraft were going to do the same. Make earlier
forms of transport largely irrelevant. Trains in particular were seen as
obsolete. A slow and inconvenient way for people to travel. No match for the
unfettered freedom of the personal automobile. In the 1950's, the Americans
were pouring billions into building Interstate highways and rail lines were
shutting down. In Europe, railways were stagnating. Many countries were still
operating steam locomotives. And it was in this context that Japan was blasting
through mountains, drilling 67 miles of new tunnel, and constructing over 3,000
new bridges. All to build a railway. But this wasn't going to be just any railway.
This was one of the most ambitious rail projects of the century. The Japanese
were calling it the Shinkansen, and the trains on this new line would run at
speeds unmatched anywhere in the world. Nearly twice as fast as any existing
train in Japan. And the new line would be dedicated only to high-speed trains,
which meant they'd be able to travel at incredible speeds between Japan's two
biggest cities; Tokyo to Osaka. And to make such high speeds possible, the new
line would be built using a wider gauge of rail. And it would be laid out with
gentle curves, which meant tunneling through and bridging over much of
Japan's difficult terrain. But for all its ambition, many dismissed the Shinkansen
as ridiculous. A senior railway executive described the project in 1964
as the 'height of madness.' The wider gauge of rail, which was necessary for such
high speeds, made the Shinkansen incompatible with the rest of Japan's
rail network. Many questioned the value of a fast train, if it would be stuck running
on a single line, and whether the effort involved in getting trains to reliably
go this fast, was really worth it. But the criticisms weren't just technical. This
was one enormously expensive project. And to make matters worse, over five
years of construction, the Shinkansen's budget had spiraled out of control.
Nearly doubling over the original estimate. And because of that, two visionaries
leading the project, the President of Japanese National Railways and his Chief
Engineer, both resigned before the project even finished. The media were
calling it Japan's Great Wall of China. A massive but ultimately misguided effort,
when other countries were looking towards jets and automobiles as the
future. But the critics would soon fall silent.
When the first Shinkansen line opened in the fall of 1964, the world took note.
Because it made cars on expressways look like they were standing still, and once
profitable inter-city air routes were now being threatened by a train.
In just the first three years of service, the Shinkansen carried over 100 million
passengers. Demand skyrocketed. The new line not only better connected
Japan's two largest cities, it seemingly pulled them closer together. A Tokyo
executive could now attend a meeting in Osaka
more than 320 miles away, and still make it home in time for dinner.
A combination of speed and frequent service made the world's first
high-speed railway enormously profitable. It turns out that the Shinkansen
was anything but ridiculous. Because the project's visionaries weren't taking a
gamble on some radical new technology. Instead, they adapted the very best
proven technologies and brilliantly integrated them into one seamless system.
A Shinkansen train's streamlined shape and smooth outer
surfaces minimized air resistance and noise at high speeds.
There was no locomotive, not in the traditional sense. Instead motive-power
was distributed with axles each driven by separate electric traction motors. The
setup offered superior acceleration, and a train could operate even with multiple
failed motors. It also meant more evenly distributed weight on tracks, which
reduced wear. At 130 miles per hour, the new Shinkansen trains had the highest
service speed in the world. And yet speed had never been the real motivation. This
wasn't some vanity project. the Shinkansen had always been about
moving a large volume of passengers, so engineers designed the new line to
withstand the stress of running 60 high-speed trains in each direction
every day. A number that would only increase through the years to hundreds
today. To withstand the stresses, rail ties were made of pre-stressed concrete
and rails, each normally 82 feet long, were welded into nearly 5,000 foot long
continuous sections to reduce vibration and noise. Rail crossings were eliminated.
Cars were routed either above or below the line to ensure safe and reliable
service. Moving at over 190 feet per second, a Shinkansen conductor would have
struggled to react in time to conventional wayside signals. The
solution was Automatic Train Control, a system that sent signal information
directly on board to the conductor, regulating speed based on a train's
position. The entire line was monitored by a centralized traffic control center
in Tokyo, critical to the safe operation of a high volume of trains. And in one of
the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, seismometers were
installed along the line. The system would cut power at the first sign of
earthquake, automatically activating a train's emergency brakes. And to keep the
track in tip-top shape, special diagnostic trains nicknamed the 'Yellow
Doctor' regularly assessed the state of the track and overhead lines using
sophisticated on-board monitoring equipment. The enormous success of the
first Shinkansen line spurred its extension westward, and over the course
of the next half century, new lines would be built to reach nearly every corner of
the nation. The opening of the world's first high-speed railway in 1964 had a
profound impact on Japan. But it also changed the way the world saw railways.
In no small part, the success of the Japanese helped inspire other countries
to develop their own high-speed networks like France's TGV, which began service in
the early 1980's. Over the past 50 years speeds on shangkun's and lines have
continued to increase, made possible by new track technologies and successive
generations of trains. Shinkansen trains on newer lines now regularly hit 198
miles per hour. While Shinkansen trains are no longer the fastest in the world,
focusing on speed alone misses the point. No other rail system in the world can
match the Shinkansen for it's incredible efficiency, safety and punctuality. Today,
the Shinkansen moves over 1 million people every single day. During peak
periods, one departs Tokyo every three minutes. And since 1964, the Shinkansen
has maintained a pristine safety record, moving over 10 billion people
without a single passenger casualty. It's punctuality is the envy of the world,
with average delays measured in just seconds. And for the visionaries who
forged ahead with getting the first Shinkansen line built, over half a
century ago, they were ultimately vindicated for creating the world's most
renowned high-speed rail network, and for introducing modern high-speed rail to
the world.
Japan's Bullet Trains run on their own dedicated tracks. But if a Bullet Train
traveling at 137 miles per hour were to approach a much slower train, one
struggling just to maintain 54 miles per hour, and it takes 7.5 seconds for the
bullet train to overtake the slower train, well then you should be able to
figure out what the length of the bullet train is (in feet). The first viewer to
post the correct answer in the comments gets a free t-shirt from the Mustard
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