High-speed route
Kyushu Shinkansen
Fukuoka → Kagoshima · Japan
- Distance
- 257 km
- Fastest time
- 1 h 16 min
- Average speed
- 203 km/h
- Top speed
- 260 km/h
- Operator
- JR Kyushu
- Train
- N700-8000 “Sakura”
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 2011
- Runs
- 1–2× hourly (Sakura), Mizuho at peaks
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
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.
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
Along the way
- Chikugo River plain
- Kumamoto Castle country
- Yatsushiro Sea islands
- Satsuma tea terraces
- Sakurajima across Kinkō Bay
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