Japan’s bullet trains, 1964 to now

The Shinkansen: the new main line that changed railways.

The first line opened in 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics. Since then the bullet trains have grown into a network across Japan, carried billions of people, borrowed ideas from birds and floated on magnets at 603 km/h. Every fact is linked to its source, and there is a quiz at the end.

Start in 1964 Take the quiz

A long white bullet train with a blue stripe crossing green fields, with snow-capped Mount Fuji behind under a blue sky — An N700S on the Tokaido Shinkansen with Mount Fuji behind, April 2023.Picture: Takeshi Aida, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and resized)

1964the first line opens, Tokyo to Osaka Embassy of Japan

7 billionpassengers on the Tokaido Shinkansen JR Central

285 km/htop speed on the Tokaido line today JR Central

603 km/hthe L0 maglev’s record, 2015 Guinness

The short version

It was the first railway route built just to move large numbers of people in comfort and at high speed. NRM

The Tokaido Shinkansen opened on 1 October 1964, just 10 days before the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games began. Embassy of Japan

They were soon called ‘bullet trains’, for their speed and for the bullet shape of their noses. Britannica

Shinkansen lines now run on the islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Hokkaido. Britannica

JR Central says no passenger on board has been killed or injured in a train accident on the Tokaido Shinkansen since it opened. JR Central

Sources don’t always agree on the details, such as how long the first trains took. Where they differ, we show each figure side by side.

A long white train with a blue stripe running across flat fields below snow-capped Mount Fuji — A Series 0, the first bullet train, below Mount Fuji in 1999.Picture: Shellparakeet, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped and resized)

Tokyo to Osaka, from 6 hours 30 minutes to a planned 67 minutes (our chart).Drawing: our own, simplified and not to scale

Explore

1964The first line, and the engineer behind it.

The linesFrom one line to a network.

The trainsSeries 0 to N700S, and Doctor Yellow.

Speed210 km/h to 320, and a kingfisher.

Every dayHundreds of trains, seconds late.

MaglevFloating on magnets at 603 km/h.

Tile pictures are credited on their pages and on the credits page.

Try the games

A 12-question quiz, a myth-or-fact challenge, and a journey dial that shows how long Tokyo to Osaka took in any year.

Play now