High-speed route
Yamagata Shinkansen
Tokyo → Shinjo · Japan
Yamagata Shinkansen in pictures
Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 421 km
- Fastest time
- 3 h 10 min
- Average speed
- 133 km/h
- Top speed
- 300 km/h
- Operator
- JR East
- Train
- E8 “Tsubasa”
- Countries
- Japan
- In service since
- 1992
- Runs
- ≈ hourly (not all continue to Shinjō)
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Japan’s first mini-shinkansen: beyond Fukushima the “Tsubasa” runs re-gauged valley rails below Zao’s slopes into cherry and soba country.
At Fukushima the Tsubasa swings off the trunk route and grinds over the Itaya Pass, a crossing so snowbound that rotary ploughs once ruled it. The stops beyond read like a craft fair: Yonezawa with its beef bentos, Tendō where most of Japan’s shōgi pieces are carved, Ōishida as the door to the gaslit lanes of Ginzan Onsen. Since 2024 the elegant E8 sets have been taking over, wearing a stripe of Yamagata safflower yellow.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1950427 — 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 3 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: JR East — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Itaya Pass snow country
- Yonezawa beef town
- Kaminoyama-Onsen castle town
- Tendō shōgi workshops
- Ōishida for Ginzan Onsen
- Shinjō festival float museum
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