VIDEO: These Trains Are Faster Than Bullets!

Shinkansen is the term used to describe bullet trains in Japan and it literally means “new trunk line.” Sometimes referred to as “super express” services, Shinkansen trains mostly run on dedicated tracks and stop only at major stations. They are operated by Japan Railways Group companies and feature some of the fastest trains in the world, traveling at up to 320 kilometers per hour.

Here is some further information on these awesome trains, provided by Wikipedia.

The Shinkansen is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by five Japan Railways Group companies. Starting with the Tōkaidō Shinkansen (515.4 km, 320.3 mi) in 1964, the network has expanded to currently consist of 2,764.6 km (1,717.8 mi) of lines with maximum speeds of 240–320 km/h (150–200 mph), 283.5 km (176.2 mi) of Mini-shinkansen lines with a maximum speed of 130 km/h (80 mph), and 10.3 km (6.4 mi) of spur lines with Shinkansen services. The network presently links most major cities on the islands of Honshu and Kyushu, and Hakodate on northern island of Hokkaido, with an extension to Sapporo under construction and scheduled to commence in March 2031. The nickname bullet train is sometimes used in English for these high-speed trains.

The maximum operating speed is 320 km/h (200 mph) (on a 387.5 km section of the Tōhoku Shinkansen). Test runs have reached 443 km/h (275 mph) for conventional rail in 1996, and up to a world record 603 km/h (375 mph) for maglev trains in April 2015.

Shinkansen literally means new trunk line, referring to the high-speed rail line network. The name Superexpress, initially used for Hikari trains, was retired in 1972 but is still used in English-language announcements and signage.

The original Tōkaidō Shinkansen, connecting the largest cities of Tokyo and Osaka, is the world’s busiest high-speed rail line. Carrying 151 million passengers per year (March 2008), and at over 5 billion total passengers it has transported more passengers than any other high-speed line in the world. The service on the line operates much larger trains and at higher frequency than most other high speed lines in the world. At peak times, the line 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.

Japan’s Shinkansen network had the highest annual passenger ridership (a maximum of 353 million in 2007) of any high-speed rail network until 2011, when Chinese High Speed Rail network surpassed it at 370 million passengers annually, though the total cumulative passengers, at over 10 billion, is still larger. While the Shinkansen network has been expanding, Japan’s declining population is expected to cause ridership to decline over time. The recent expansion in tourism has boosted ridership marginally.

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 (3 ft 6 in) narrow-gauge lines, which generally took indirect routes and could not be adapted to higher speeds. Consequently, Japan had a greater need for new high-speed lines than countries where the existing standard gauge or broad gauge rail system had more upgrade potential.

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