Picture credits
The drawings are our own. The photos are from Wikimedia Commons, under Creative Commons licences (Attribution, or Attribution-ShareAlike), CC0, or in the public domain.
Photos
Shinkansen N700S series photographed at Higashi-Tagonoura with Mount Fuji in the background, 10 April 2023.jpg
by Takeshi Aida, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
0 series first class interior 19670508.jpg
by Roger Wollstadt, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
Shinkansen Series 0 car 22-141 at the National Railway Museum - August 2018.jpg
by nzsteam, CC BY 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes.
Mount Fuji and Shinkansen N700.jpg
by Alpsdake, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
Shinkansen, the Hayabusa and the Super-Komachi super express.jpg
by Nanashinodensyaku, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
Shinkansen 923 series Doctor Yellow set T4 at Hakata station, 28 January 2025 - 1.jpg
by Takeshi Aida, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
JRW Shinkansen Series 500 V3 Pantograph.jpg
by Sfm, CC BY 3.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes.
Alcedo atthis -diving-8e.jpg
by Ryan Cheng, CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes. Shared here under the same licence.
SC Maglev Test Ride (18464832625).jpg
by Maryland GovPics (State of Maryland), CC BY 2.0. Cropped and resized; no other changes.
Our own drawings
- A bar chart of travel times from Tokyo to Osaka. An ordinary express before 1964: 6 hours 30 minutes. The Series 0 at opening in 1964: 4 hours. Before the Nozomi, by 1992: 3 hours 10 minutes. The Nozomi in 1992: 2 hours 30 minutes. Today’s fastest Nozomi, to Shin-Osaka: 2 hours 21 minutes. The planned Chuo Shinkansen maglev: 67 minutes.
Our own drawing - A bar chart of top speeds in kilometres per hour. Series 0, 1964: 210. Tokaido Shinkansen from 2003: 270. Tokaido Shinkansen from 2015: 285. JR East Series E5 from 2013: 320. The planned Chuo maglev: 500. The L0 maglev record of 21 April 2015: 603.
Our own drawing - A schematic line diagram, not a map, of the main Shinkansen lines with the year each section opened. From Tokyo west: Osaka 1964, Okayama 1972, Hakata 1975; then on Kyushu, Yatsushiro to Kagoshima 2004, Hakata to Yatsushiro 2011, and a branch to Nagasaki 2022. From Tokyo north: Morioka 1982, Hachinohe 2002, Aomori 2010, and Hakodate on Hokkaido 2016. From Tokyo to Niigata 1982. To Nagano 1997, then Kanazawa 2015. A note says Hakodate to Sapporo is expected in 2031.
Our own drawing - Two panels. Left: a kingfisher’s long pointed beak above the long, low nose of a 500 Series train, about 15 metres long; the bird dives from air into water without a splash. Right: an owl’s feather with saw-toothed edges, and a pantograph, the arm that collects power from the wires, with small notches along its top.
Our own drawing
The drawings are simplified teaching drawings, not to scale, made from the sourced descriptions on this site. Useless the eraser is the network’s own mascot. Fonts: Bricolage Grotesque, Newsreader and Kalam (SIL Open Font Licence), served from this site.