infomapJAPAN Blog

Travelling by railways in Japan is very convenient and reasonable?in Japan(if you have JR Pass).?Japanese railway system is well developed and covers wide range of regional?areas.?However, when you?don’t speak?or read Japanese, it is hard to get around because there is too much information that makes you confuse especially in the crowded?mega stations like Tokyo.?I happened to found a nice blog(Japan visitor blog) talks about more Shinkansen and tips for travelling by Rail. so if you are planning to travel by rail but not confident in Japanese communication skills look it up. they talk about JR pass there too, but here’s another JR Pass information.

This is another picture of Shinkansen. I took the linking part of the two trains. the right part?train is “Tsubasa” which is going toward to Yamagata. and the other part train is “Yamabiko”?going to Aomori,?most northerly prefecture in Japan. Basically this coupling is processed smoothly under computer controll with passengers on the train. A blast on a horn of Shinkansen can be heard which rarely honked before entering the process.

we see many types of Shinkansen trains in Japan. The design of those shinkansens have been improved considerably over time.?Recent apperance of shinkansen looks neo-futuristic. when you have JR Pass you can ride shinkansen as much as you want excluding “Nozomi” while it is effective.?It would be quite fun to take different series(types) of Shinkansen which are developed for regional geography and climate of that region or area. Mikan moblog introduce different type of shinkansen.

I’ll give you a trivia about shinkansen. when the shinkansen head lights are red, that means the car is back end of shinkansen. For example,?about a pic below, the lights of the right side of shinkansen are red, means it goes toward ‘Kudari‘(going away from Tokyo) and the left side shinkansen with yellow lights on goes toward Tokyo.

All cars of E4 series “Max” are double-deck. when two of 8 cars of E4 series are linked together, the total cars will be 16 and seating cap. will be 1634. This is the largest capacity for bullet train in the world.

This E2-series are used for Joetsu and Tohoku shinkansen line. when travelling mountain pass between Gunma and Nagano Prefecture, this shinkansen was designed so powerful that it maintains enough power source to restart in case of emergency stop at steeply-sloping spot.

I like taking “Shinkansen”. it’s fast and relaxing. if you have a JR pass, you can travel anywhere in Japan by Shinkansen while it’s effective. However, you cannot use JR Pass for Nozomi. you will see waiting rooms and some bento(lunch box) shops at Shinkansen platform. I got a katsu(deep-fried pork) sandwitch here. I had to wait in a line as it gets pretty busy before the departure.