I rode on a Japanese bullet train! These high-speed trains, called “Shinkansen”, are the backbone of Japan’s passenger rail
network. Shinkansen rail lines stretch across almost the entire country, with trains
travelling at speeds of up to 320km/h! Japan was the first country to build dedicated
high-speed rail lines starting in the late 1950s, and since then, the Shinkansen has
carried over 10 billion passengers! Now, you may have noticed that I tend to
show a different mode of transportation on this channel. That’s because, at home in Calgary,
Canada, high-speed rail… or any inter-city rail, just doesn’t exist. As a result, I basically
grew up on highways like most North Americans, so long-distance passenger trains have
always been… almost a novelty for me. So, during my trip to Japan
with friends back in May, a ride on a Shinkansen was very much on our list. Today’s journey starts in the city of Hiroshima, the largest city in the Chūgoku Region of Japan.
Hiroshima has a population of around 1.2 million, situated among these beautiful rolling hills
on the western side of the island of Honshu. It is, however, the site of a sobering piece of
history, when the city became the first target of a nuclear weapon on August 6th, 1945. Since
then, Hiroshima has been rebuilt as a symbol of peace and hope, and the city continues to
advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Much of the area near the hypocentre of the
explosion has become the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. There, the ruins of the Hiroshima
Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall have been preserved as a solemn, but important reminder
of what took place here almost 80 years ago. We spent some time here appreciating
the city and reflecting on history before making our way to Hiroshima Station. Japan has 8 main Shinkansen
lines across the country, which are operated by 5 different companies.
These companies make up part of the JR Group, which operates almost all of the
intercity rail services within Japan. For the next part of our week here,
we’d be riding on the San'yō Shinkansen, which connects the cities of Fukuoka and Osaka.
Some trains also have continuing service to Tokyo. For us, we’d be getting on here at Hiroshima Station and heading east to spend some
time in the cities of Osaka and Kyoto. Shinkansen tickets can be purchased
right at the station, and online too. Because there were 4 of us though, and we
weren’t sure how full the trains might be, we actually bought our tickets a few days
prior at the JR help centre at Narita Airport. Shinkansen trains have their own dedicated
platforms since their routes don’t intersect with any conventional train lines. That
helps them achieve the punctuality that they’re known for, with an average
delay of under a minute in some cases. With tickets in hand, we got through the gates
and made our way up to the platform right away. One of the many things that Japan excels at
are the food options in their train stations, but we unfortunately didn’t have enough time
to grab anything before our train arrived. Generally you can get yourself a bit
more flexibility if you buy a rail pass, since trains never seem to be more than 10
or 15 minutes apart throughout the day. These tickets though, were just for this ride in a
specific car, so we didn’t want to miss this. Right on schedule, as expected, was
our train for today’s ride to Osaka, an N700A Series Shinkansen. This train
set, F17, was delivered to JR West in 2018, and these trains are operated on the
Tokaido, San’yo, and Kyushu Shinkansen lines. We’d be sitting in Car number 10 for today’s
ride, in one of the “Green Cars”, which has these bigger seats and assigned seating.
My seat for the next little bit was 4D. I settled into this very
comfortable seat right away, which had tons of space, and
this well-positioned window. In almost no time at all,
we were already on the move. Today’s journey takes us eastbound from
Hiroshima, and because this is the Nozomi service, with very few stops, we’d only be stopping at two
stations along the way - Okayama and Shin-Kobe before arriving into Shin-Osaka. The total
distance covered today would be 305 kilometres, and was expected to take… An hour and 21
minutes. You can do the math from there! We accelerated away from Hiroshima station, and then kept going! It’s one thing to see
the scenery go by quickly when you’re flying, but when you are very much still on the
ground, that is a brand new sensation entirely! We quickly entered the first of several tunnels, and I’ll take that opportunity
to look around the interior. In these, once again, very spacious seats,
you have this tray table right in front that has a bunch of information on
the back about the car you’re in, and where you can find certain
things in the adjacent cars as well. The actual tray table is super large,
sturdy, and sits at this very nice height. There’s a mesh seatback pocket in front, which
had these two magazines inside. One looked to be more travel oriented with a bunch of
timetables inside, while the other one is apparently targeted at businesspeople,
and is only placed in these Green cars. As the scenery outside flew by, a cabin attendant came by and handed out
these wet towels to everybody in the car. Going back to the rest of the
seat, there’s this adjustable footrest right in front that had
a bunch of different positions. You’ll also find power outlets
built right into the armrest, plus buttons for the reading
light and even a seat warmer too. On the outside armrests is a lever that adjusts
the seat recline, which goes quite a ways back, and built into the headrest is
that reading light from before. If all of that wasn’t enough though, there’s also this secondary tray
table that’s built into the armrest. We got another fleeting glimpse outside
before we made our way into another tunnel, and I went for a walk around the car. The Nozomi Shinkansen is made up of 16 cars,
with cars 8, 9, and 10 in the middle being Green Cars. These seat between 64 and 68 passengers, in
that very comfortable 2-2 layout. As you can see, they’re very bright and open, and have these
convenient luggage racks above the seats. The remaining 13 cars are all Ordinary Cars,
as JR calls them. These seat between 63 and 100 passengers in a slightly narrower but still
pleasant 2-3 layout. The first three cars or so on Nozomi services have non reserved seating,
while the rest do have specific seat assignments. In total, on these 16-car trains,
there’s a maximum capacity of 1,323 passengers - 200 of those being in
Green Cars, and 1,123 in Ordinary Cars. Each car has a slightly different number of
seats depending on what they have outside of the passenger compartment, and in this one
between cars 9 and 10 were some washrooms. In typical Japanese fashion, these were spotless! There was also a communal sink, and this
compartment for storing larger bags. In between other cars, you’ll
also find smoking rooms too. Back in my seat, I settled in for the rest of
the ride and just watched everything go by. There is free wifi available on these trains,
but I stayed glued to the window anyway. There’s just so much to look at, and the speed
of it all still makes it feel very surreal. We eventually started slowing down as
we approached Okayama Station. Okayama is the second largest city in the Chugoku region
after Hiroshima, and this stop was very much the same as that one. We were stopped for what felt
like less than a minute before continuing on. Now, it’s worth talking about just how
much a ride on one of these trains costs. For the same route between Hiroshima and
Osaka, you can find tickets for as low as 10,000 yen in Ordinary cars. For
the Green Car though, this cost us 15,000 yen, or $150 Canadian dollars per ticket
at the time, which I still think is a good deal. That said, when a reserved seat in an Ordinary
car is almost $50 less, you might as well take that instead. To go 300 kilometres in an
hour and a half for $100 is a great value. As far as we could tell, there aren’t
actually any flights between the two cities, but even if there were, you can’t deny
just how convenient these trains are. Also, just for confirmation,
we were indeed going very fast! These N700A Series trains have a top speed of
300 km/h. They also have the ability to tilt up to one degree to maintain speed on slightly
“tighter” curves at least by Shinkansen standards. We soon came to our second
stop, at Shin-Kobe Station, just outside of Osaka, and
were back on our way very soon. Now one thing we did kind of miss out
on was getting ourselves bento boxes beforehand to eat onboard, but
there is still a trolley service that comes through the train with
snacks and drinks for purchase. I grabbed a small bottle of Coke and
this Belgian waffle snack for just a few hundred yen and quickly ate
that as we approached Shin-Osaka. So, that was my first time ever on a Shinkansen,
and what a genuinely cool experience it was! The convenience element of it really is
unmatched, and the fact that we were able to go from entering the station to being on
our way in less than 10 minutes is amazing… I realize that’s how trains work, but I am
much more used to the hassle of airports. Aside from that, just racing through the
Japanese countryside at 300 km/h is a whole new experience of its own. Selfishly, it
makes me want Alberta high speed rail even more. That said, I am hoping that your takeaway
from this video is less, “Canadian man discovers that high speed trains exist”, and
more that, “Japan does this phenomenally well”. I said this before in the single
other train video I’ve made, but I just wish I didn’t have to fly across
the world to experience this for myself. I will absolutely be riding more of
these trains the next time I’m in Japan, and I’m so glad I took the opportunity
to ride on a Japanese bullet train. Once again, this was definitely
not my normal subject matter, but I think this was too cool an experience
to pass up. I do hope you enjoyed this special train video, so thank you very much for
watching, and I will see you next time.
