Hayabusa

Japan’s fastest trains dive beneath the sea through the 53.9 km Seikan Tunnel to reach Hokkaido.

Fifteen-metre noses on the E5s hush the tunnel booms as the trains cross the Tōhoku heartland through Sendai and Morioka. North of Aomori the rails sink to roughly 240 m below sea level beneath the Tsugaru Strait (a link first demanded after the 1954 Tōya Maru ferry disaster) before daylight returns among Hokkaido’s farms. The run ends at Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto, a short shuttle from Hakodate’s waterfront and its famous morning market.

Stations

1. 0 kmTokyo +8
2. 31 kmOmiya +4
3. 324 kmSendai +2
4. 366 kmFurukawa
5. 388 kmKurikoma-Kogen
6. 409 kmIchinoseki
7. Show 7 more stations

   1. 434 kmMizusawa-Esashi
   2. 451 kmKitakami
   3. 466 kmShin-Hanamaki
   4. 499 kmMorioka +1
   5. 530 kmIwate-Numakunai
   6. 565 kmNinohe
   7. 596 kmHachinohe +1
8. 632 kmShichinohe-Towada
9. 677 kmShin-Aomori
10. 716 kmOkutsugaru-imabetsu
11. 795 kmKikonai
12. 830 kmShin-Hakodate-Hokuto +1

The stations OpenStreetMap lists for a train that runs this route end to end, 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

• Sendai — city of trees
• Mt. Iwate near Morioka
• Aomori Bay
• Seikan Tunnel beneath the Tsugaru Strait
• Hakodate morning market

How this line was checked

• Checked against OpenStreetMap: 99.2% of this line lies within 250 m of real track (median 5 m); the longest stretch away from it is 2 km
• The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR East · JR Hokkaido — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
• Wikipedia has an article for this line

Questions and answers

How long is the Hayabusa?

The Hayabusa runs 862 km from Tokyo to Hakodate.

How long does the Hayabusa take?

The fastest scheduled journey is 3 h 57 min for the 862 km. That is an average of 218 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 320 km/h.

Who runs the Hayabusa?

JR East and JR Hokkaido, with E5 / H5 Series.

How old is the Hayabusa?

The line has been in service since 2016. 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 Hayabusa run?

≈ 10× daily each way, roughly hourly.

View on the world railway map →

Read more on Wikipedia ↗