Shinkansen Shinkansen The , meaning "new trunkline," but colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan. Initially, it was built to connect distant Japanese regions with Tokyo, the capital, in order to aid economic growth and development. Beyond long-distance travel, some sections around the largest metropolitan areas are used as a commuter rail network. It is operated by five Japan Railways Group companies. Starting with the Tōkaidō Shinkansen () in 1964, the network has expanded to currently consist of of lines with maximum speeds of , of Mini-Shinkansen lines with a maximum
Kyushu Shinkansen Kyushu Shinkansen The is a Japanese high-speed railway line between the cities of Fukuoka and Kagoshima in Kyushu, running parallel to the existing Kagoshima Main Line and operated by JR Kyushu. It is an extension of the Sanyo Shinkansen from Honshu. The southern was constructed first because the equivalent section of the former Kagoshima Main Line is single track, and thus a significant improvement in transit time was gained when this dual track section opened on 13 March 2004, despite the need for passengers to change to a "Relay Tsubame" narrow gauge train at Shin-Yatsushiro for the remainder of the