Fifty years ago on Wednesday two Shinkansen bullet trains completed
   their first journeys, kickstarting a high-speed rail network that would
   transform Japan

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   taken close to seven hours. The Shinkansen had made the trip in four.

   The world’s first high-speed commercial train line, which celebrates
   its 50th anniversary on Wednesday, was built along the Tokaido, one of
   the five routes that connected the Japanese hinterland to Edo, the city
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   that.

   The high-speed network now reaches all the way west to the island of
   Kyushu and north to Akita, at the northern tip of the main island,
   Honshu. Next March, the Hokuriku Shinkansen will be extended to
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   Local governments in Japan rely heavily on the central government for
   funds and public works – it’s how the central government keeps them in
   line. Politicians actively court high-speed railways since they believe
   they attract money, jobs and tourists. In the early 1990s, a new
   Shinkansen was built to connect Tokyo to Nagano, host of the 1998
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   supposed to connect Tokyo to Nagoya by 2027 and is being built 40m
   underground. The maglev is the next technological stage in the
   evolution of high-speed rail travel. It is meant to be a morale booster
   for Japan’s railway industry, which no longer boasts the fastest trains
   or the biggest ridership in the world, distinctions that now belong to
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   to 40 minutes, theoretically putting the central Japanese capital
   within commuting distance of Tokyo – in much the same way that the
   proposed HS2 will make Birmingham a bedroom community of London. “The
   Chuo Shinkansen will make Nagoya feel like a suburb of Tokyo,” said
   Hara.
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   carriers, any train trip that takes more than two hours from Tokyo is
   less cost-effective than flying. The development of the Shinkansen
   can’t be separated from geography. China’s faster, vaster high-speed
   rail service isn’t all focused on Beijing, because the country itself
   is huge; in Japan, however, until recently the Shinkansen was the best
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   spent any money on it (yet), but national priorities aren’t as clear as
   they were in the 1950s. Tokyo can’t get any bigger. Other areas of
   Japan are barely hanging on. Japan’s high-speed rail system may end up
   being the victim of its own success.

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     * Japan
     * Rail transport (World news)
     * HS2
     * Asia Pacific
     * Rail transport (UK news)
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