Japan Tips

[Gag Halfrunt]

mini-canals / irritation

Did you mean irrigation?

 

[Prime586]

Prime586, thanks for the update about the coupling issues; I’m a bit surprised that didn’t make one of the Japanese news sites I browse. williamn, hope you’re enjoying the rest of your stay!

It made it onto all the main news sites (NHK, Mainichi Shimbun, Japan Times, Kyodo etc.). The Asahi Shimbun article is the most in-depth. The physical block has been implemented as a temporary override in order to resume MU working until they can work out where the spurious uncoupling signals are coming from. The investigation into last year's incident concluded it was caused by swarf from drilling the control panels during construction caused a short circuit, but after the recent incident it looks like it's a more insideous problem.

 

[williamn]

The best, most interestingly Japanese part to me was a day trip from Nagoya to Magome and Tsumago. And the hike between them. Ancient forests, vibes like a Miyazaki movie - really tranquil.

And the towns themselves, with their mini-canals / irritation, beautiful houses - so perfect.

Train-wise, Nagoya parts fairly meh but then it improves out towards Nakatsugawa / Nagiso (depending on which way you go).

Highly recommended. Much preferred it to Hakone, tbh.

This is exactly what we did! Absolutely loved it, including staying in a traditional inn in Magome. Really enjoyed the local two car emu too, you could see out the front and the driver acted as both that and guard / ticket collector and seller.

 

[Three-Nine]

There was a lot of coverage on Japanese TV news but nothing I saw in English - however this 10-minute report on the incident from ANN News from two weeks ago includes a transcript:

Hi, I knew the incident had been reported on Japanese news, what I meant is that remedial action had already taken place, sorry for not making that more clear.

 

[williamn]

One thing which puzzles me - I understand from what I’ve read that the reason windows on the Shinkansen are so small is due to the pressures going at speed through tunnels, but isn’t this also the case on other high speed systems that seem to have normal windows? I’m just at the Kyoto Railway museum and see that the original Shinkansen had normal windows too.

 

[cle]

Did you mean irrigation?

Haha, indeed i did. A day like that is among the least irritated I've ever been.

 

[Prime586]

One thing which puzzles me - I understand from what I’ve read that the reason windows on the Shinkansen are so small is due to the pressures going at speed through tunnels, but isn’t this also the case on other high speed systems that seem to have normal windows? I’m just at the Kyoto Railway museum and see that the original Shinkansen had normal windows too.

The original Series 0 Shinkansen units were designed for 135mph operation, and had 146cm windows in standard class cars and 187cm windows in Green Class cars. These were based on the 'picture windows' in JNR's then current Limited Express units, but were triple glazed instead of double glazed.

The move to smaller windows first occurred with the Series 0-1000 batch of units produced between 1976 and 1980, based on the Class 961 prototypes. These had 63cm windows in standard class and 85cm windows in Green Class. The Class 961 was designed to run tests at much higher speeds (it ultimately reached 198mph) which was part of the reason for the move to small windows, but it was mainly due to the large windows having an issue with cracking due to low temperatures in winter (this was going to become more of a problem once the Tōhoku Shinkansen line opened) and the large apertures leading to accelerated metal fatigue in the thin gauge steel body sides from the pressure changes in high speed tunnel running. Using smaller window reduced the likelihood of cracking of both the glass and the steel body sides, and made the windows cheaper to replace if they did fail. It also allowed JNR to respace the seating in line with the smaller windows to add more capacity.

A further Series 0-2000 batch of units were built between 1981 and 1986 to replace the original Series 0 units which were experiencing the aforementioned premature metal fatigue and these had an intermediate window size of 72cm in standard class and 90cm in Green Class.

Prior to the introduction of the Series 100 units to replace the Series 0 in 1985, JNR built the Series 200 sets between 1980 and 1986, which in looks were a hybrid of the Series 0 and the forthcoming Series 100s. These were specialist light weight, high power units for use on the the mountain routes of the Tohoku Shinkansen and Joetsu Shinkansen and again featured the intermediate sized windows

The 145mph Series 100 units which rolled out in 1985 to replace the fatigued Series 0 units used the traction and power systems from the Series 200 in a new bodyshell that briefly returned to the wide windows of the Series 0. Alost as soon as the Series 100 was rolled out, work started on developing it's replacement, the Series 300 (which would be faster, lighter, more efficient and have higher passenger capacity). The Series 100 being a gradual evolution of the 200 design instead concentrated more on the customer experience, hence the return to large 'picture windows' and increased seat pitch, and the introduction of the 'Grand Hikari' sets which featured 2 double deck cars with large windows in the panoramic dining car and Green Class on the upper decks and small windows in standard class underneath.

The Series 300 units were introduced in 1992. and were designed for 170mph operation, which meant even greater pressure changes in the tunnels. These returned to the small windows of the Series 200, and the steel car bodies were now replaced with aluminium. Almost all the Shinkansens designed since have used small windows, though post-provatisation JR East still favoured large windows for some of it's units (such as the E1 and E4 series double deck units and the E2-1000 series).

 

[Mainliner]

The latest Trek Trendy YouTube video features the Twilight Express (Mizukaze).

Eye-wateringly expensive, but an amazing train.

 

[WideRanger]

Somewhat ironically, the smaller windows on most Shinkansen trains is not a major downside, because they allign perfectly to every seat. Even the rotation of the seat (to ensure they are always facing forward, unless the passengers actively choose otherwise) is around the same axis of symmetry as the window.

Because of that, there are no seats on the shinkansen without a window view.

It really is a lovely design solution to enable engineering efficiencies.

 

[williamn]

Somewhat ironically, the smaller windows on most Shinkansen trains is not a major downside, because they allign perfectly to every seat. Even the rotation of the seat (to ensure they are always facing forward, unless the passengers actively choose otherwise) is around the same axis of symmetry as the window.

Because of that, there are no seats on the shinkansen without a window view.

It really is a lovely design solution to enable engineering efficiencies.

I didn’t really find this to be the case, the windows were often positioned too far back so I had to twist my neck to look out. My forward vision was a the wall.