Sanyo Shinkansen

The Inland Sea corridor past Himeji Castle and Hiroshima, and the home turf of the needle-nosed 500 Series.

Completed through to Hakata in 1975, this is the racing straight of the Japanese network: long tunnels under the Chūgoku hills alternating with viaduct dashes past shipyards, oyster rafts and sudden flashes of the Inland Sea. The fastest services hold 300 km/h between stops before diving under the Kanmon Strait to enter Kyushu at Kokura. Through Mizuho and Sakura trains off the Kyushu line join the parade, so the corridor hums with departures from early till late.

Stations

1. 0 kmShin-Osaka +5
2. 33 kmShin-Kobe
3. 161 kmOkayama +4
4. 218 kmFukuyama +1
5. 305 kmHiroshima +1
6. 497 kmKokura +1
7. 553 kmHakata +4

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

• Shin-Kōbe under Mt. Rokkō
• Himeji Castle from the viaduct
• Seto Inland Sea glimpses
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
• Kanmon Strait crossing to Kyushu

How this line was checked

• Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 9807033 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
• Checked against OpenStreetMap: 97.7% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 5 m); the longest stretch away from it is 9.5 km
• The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR West — 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 Sanyo Shinkansen?

The Sanyo Shinkansen runs 553 km from Osaka to Fukuoka.

How long does the Sanyo Shinkansen take?

The fastest scheduled journey is 2 h 21 min for the 553 km. That is an average of 235 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 300 km/h.

Who runs the Sanyo Shinkansen?

JR West, with N700S, N700A.

How old is the Sanyo Shinkansen?

The line has been in service since 1975. 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 Sanyo Shinkansen run?

Every 10–20 min; Nozomi up to 3× hourly.

View on the world railway map →

Read more on Wikipedia ↗