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- Apr 24, 2018, 2:10pm
- 🌧 18 °C
- Altitude: 57 m
- JapanKyoto35°1’17” N 135°45’20” E
Achievement Unlocked: Shinkansen
April 24, 2018 in Japan ⋅ 🌧 18 °C
Gun control starts at home - we should really stop referring to these as "bullet trains" since they don't look like that anymore, but the shinkansen are totally awesome.
Observation:
The original Tōkaidō Shinkansen connects Tokyo to Osaka and is the one we used to take us between the tow. This while time looking for the "Hikari" service rather than the "Nozumi" service on the platforms, I always assumed it was the name of the line.
I've only just discovered that "Hikari" actually means "light" and stops at more stations while"Nozumi" means "hope/wish" and is faster. The Hikari line is covered by the JR Rail Pass that foreigners can get, the Nozumi is the more expensive premier service for fancy pants Japanese suits. So my new name for the Hikari is the "Gaijin Express" since the non-reserved section is pretty much full of them.
Gaijin Express or not, these trains are totally awesome. It's super fast travel that is cost comparable to flying, but massively more convenient and comfortable than flying ever could be - which is you know, the way train travel is supposed to work in normal countries.
Getting on in Tokyo, the Hikari were leaving every 10 minutes, but in peak periods, this route carries up to thirteen trains per hour in each direction with sixteen cars each (1,323-seat capacity and occasionally additional standing passengers) with a minimum headway of three minutes between trains. From a transport policy wonk perspective, that is a crapload more capacity than can be achieved by planes.
From a comfort perspective, screw flying - these things have plenty of leg space and the carriages are wide because they use normal-country rail gauges rather than super narrow tram tracks masquerading as "heavy rail" (*ahem* QLD Rail sucks).
If you have any self respect left, you also don't have to go through the dehumanising process of border control security checks and delays while a bunch of insecure pricks use their overblown powers to boost their ego in the name of terrorism - just get on, get off where you need to go.
As much as Japan loves robots, these things are also actually fully staffed by humans, not just people to drive the bloody thing, but also conductors and omg stewards walk up and down the isle.
The stations are either in the middle of the fracken city, or they are well connected to *convenient* train connections at the other end that make transfers easy.
If there was a single thing that makes Australia feel like a backwater full of sooky la la's who have lost the ability to actually build anything like a normal country, it's our lack of fast rail - pull your finger out Australia!
Kaiju Collected:
The JR Rail Pass is a ticket to ride (in comfort, to anywhere, cheaply)Read more