During my recent trip to Japan, I used the Shinkansen, which is a Japanese bullet train, a lot.
It is very comfortable and allows to move around the county fast without the hustle associated with air travel (luggage checks, security lines, time spent getting to the remote airport and from it, etc.) Shinkansen travel isn’t cheap: the average ticket price was close to $100 one way, per person, for a 1.5-2 hour ride. But, considering other things, this was still a good choice and helped us save precious time and preserve our energy.
But, the Japanese are not staying still and, instead, are working hard on the next generation of fast ground transportation–Maglev, or Magnetically-Levitated trains.
Below is the record-setting demo of the fastest Maglev train ride so far−603 km/hour or 374 mph. This event took place on 21 April 2015:
Another short video on Maglev transportation and on the possibilities it creates:
By the way, I spoke to a young student at Nagoya University who is joining JR (Japan Railways) later this year and will be working on a Maglev project. He was pretty excited and pointed out that the first commercial Maglev line in Japan will be connecting Tokyo and Nagoya, and will open in 2028 (Wikipedia suggests 2027 for this event). In any case, this should happen in approximately 10 years from now, which gives me another good reason to visit Japan and get a ride on this new super-fast train…
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