High-speed route
Tokaido Shinkansen
Tokyo → Osaka · Japan
Tokaido Shinkansen in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 515 km
- Fastest time
- 2 h 21 min
- Average speed
- 219 km/h
- Top speed
- 285 km/h
- Operator
- JR Central ↗
- Train
- N700S
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 1964
- Riders per year
- ≈ 150M
- Runs
- up to 12 Nozomi per hour at peak
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
The original bullet train, opened for the 1964 Olympics: the world’s busiest high-speed line, with departures every few minutes past Mount Fuji.
The N700S follows the old Tōkaidō post road that once took travellers nearly two weeks on foot, and covers it before your ekiben goes cold. Aboard, the rituals are half the pleasure: seat rows pivoted to face forward, cleaning crews bowing the train out, conductors doffing caps at the vestibule door. In six decades the line has never suffered a passenger fatality from derailment or collision: a record as remarkable as its speed.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 9802401 — 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 4 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR Central — 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
Along the way
- Yokohama sprawl at speed
- Mount Fuji from seat E near Shin-Fuji
- Shizuoka tea terraces
- Lake Hamana crossing
- Kyoto temple skyline before Osaka
How long is the Tokaido Shinkansen?
The Tokaido Shinkansen runs 515 km from Tokyo to Osaka.
How long does the Tokaido Shinkansen take?
The fastest scheduled journey is 2 h 21 min for the 515 km. That is an average of 219 km/h end to end. The line's top service speed is 285 km/h.
Who runs the Tokaido Shinkansen?
JR Central, with N700S.
How old is the Tokaido Shinkansen?
The line has been in service since 1964. 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 Tokaido Shinkansen run?
Up to 12 Nozomi per hour at peak.
View on the world railway map →More high-speed routes
- Eurostar
Drops 75 m below the sea through the 50.5 km Channel Tunnel, 37.9 km of it under the seabed, the longest undersea stretch of any rail tunnel.
Wikipedia ↗ - TGV inOui
France’s original 1981 LGV forms the first leg; today the TGV holds 320 km/h nearly all the way to the Mediterranean.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Scheduled at 300 km/h, this line flipped one of the world’s busiest air routes to rail.
Wikipedia ↗ - AVE
Spain’s first AVE, built for Expo ’92 in standard gauge, the line that reset Spanish railways.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Japan.