Japan's Rail System

(Feb. 13, 2011) During our trip to Japan in November and early December my wife Kayo and I rode probably more than fifty trains. The rail system consists of three classes of trains which are the Shinkansen high speed trains, often called the bullet trains, limited express trains and local trains. The Shinkansen lines run the entire length of the main island of Honshu  and across part of the southern island of Kyushu and are sort of the spine of the system. The limited express lines use many of the same stations as the high speed trains but different lines that go off at an angle and carry passengers to places well away from the Shankansen lines and stop at only major stations on the limited express lines. The local trains use the same tracks as the limited express trains but travel shorter distances and stop at almost all stations on their route. We rode the bullet trains, the limited express and local trains and every train arrived and departed within seconds of the scheduled times. But there’s more involved to maintaining the precise schedules than pride. For example, on the Shinkanses lines there are three kinds of trains that use the same tracks. The trains called Kodama stops at all stations along their route from start to finish, the Hikari stops at a few more stations and the Nozomi stops at only one or two stations the entire way. After departing from its starting station the Kodama will stop at a couple stations and then wait at the third station for a couple minutes for a Hikari that started twelve minutes after the Kodama started to pass. Then the Kodama will go on to one more station and at the second station stop for a couple minutes for a Nozomi that started twelve minutes after the Hikari started to pass. With all three classes of trains traveling at more than 100 miles per hour on the same tracks it’s easy to see that keeping absolutely on schedule is very critical and they do it amazingly well.