Kyushu Shinkansen

Down the volcanic spine of Kyushu toward Sakurajima’s smoking cone: mostly inside tunnels, all speed.

The southern half opened first in 2004 as an isolated stub of high-speed track; the 2011 completion to Hakata joined it to the national network and brought through trains from Osaka. Out of the darkness come flashes of Kumamoto castle country, the island-scattered Yatsushiro Sea and Satsuma’s tea terraces, homeland of the clans that drove the Meiji Restoration. End to end, the Sakura and Mizuho cut the old limited-express timing by well over half.

Stations

1. 0 kmHakata +4
2. 98 kmKumamoto +2
3. 257 kmKagoshima-Chūō +1

The stations OpenStreetMap lists for this service, in order, with the distance along the line as drawn here. A train may skip some of them. A +N after a station: N other routes on this map stop or end there, and the map draws it as a station where lines meet.

Along the way

• Chikugo River plain
• Kumamoto Castle country
• Yatsushiro Sea islands
• Satsuma tea terraces
• Sakurajima across Kinkō Bay

How this line was checked

• Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 9807910 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
• Checked against OpenStreetMap: 97.1% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 4 m); the longest stretch away from it is 7.5 km
• The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR Kyushu — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
• Wikipedia has an article for this line
• See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it

Questions and answers

How long is the Kyushu Shinkansen?

The Kyushu Shinkansen runs 257 km from Fukuoka to Kagoshima.

How long does the Kyushu Shinkansen take?

The fastest scheduled journey is 1 h 16 min for the 257 km. That is an average of 203 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 260 km/h.

Who runs the Kyushu Shinkansen?

JR Kyushu, with N700-8000 “Sakura”.

How old is the Kyushu Shinkansen?

The line has been in service since 2011. That is the year the atlas dates it from: for a modern brand running over an older railway, it is the railway's date, not the brand's.

How often does the Kyushu Shinkansen run?

1–2× hourly (Sakura), Mizuho at peaks.

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Read more on Wikipedia ↗