Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen

Japan’s newest and shortest bullet line. The white-and-red “Kamome” skims Omura Bay to Nagasaki while politics still debates the missing link to Hakata.

For now it is a bullet railway in miniature, reached by a same-platform hop from the Relay Kamome at Takeo-Onsen; even so, the 23-minute run is pure JR Kyushu theatre, with Eiji Mitooka’s wood-and-fabric interiors brightening even ordinary class. New stations serve Ureshino, a 1,300-year-old tea and hot-spring town that had never seen a railway, and bayside Ōmura on the way down to Nagasaki’s rebuilt terminus. The name revives the Kamome (“seagull”) expresses that linked Nagasaki to the network for generations.

Stations

1. 0 kmTakeo Onsen
2. 11 km嬉野温泉
3. 32 km新大村
4. 45 km諫早
5. 66 kmNagasaki

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.

Along the way

• Takeo-Onsen cross-platform interchange
• Ureshino tea terraces
• Ōmura Bay views
• Isahaya plain
• Nagasaki’s new Kamome terminus

How this line was checked

• Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 17313193 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
• Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 6 m from it
• 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 Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen?

The Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen runs 66 km from Takeo-Onsen to Nagasaki.

How long does the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen take?

The fastest scheduled journey is 23 min for the 66 km. That is an average of 172 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 260 km/h.

Who runs the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen?

JR Kyushu, with N700S-8000 “Kamome”.

How old is the Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen?

The line has been in service since 2022. 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 Nishi-Kyushu Shinkansen run?

1–2× hourly (≈ 22× daily each way).

View on the world railway map →

Read more on Wikipedia ↗