JR Central hosted ceremonies at Shinagawa station in Tokyo and at Nagoya station on December 17 to mark the start of construction on the Yen 5.5 trillion ($US 46.45bn) Chuo maglev line between the two cities.
DYNAMIC testing of the first H5 train for the Hokkaido Shinkansen began on December 1, when the 10-car set made a number of runs between Nanae depot and the new Hokuto station in Hakodate, a distance of around 2km.
IN an unusual move for a Japanese railway, JR East issued an open tender on November 28 for a contract to supply a fleet of 18 DMU cars for the 107km non-electrified line from Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture to Kunji in neighbouring Iwate.
CONSTRUCTION of the first phase of JR Central's Chuo Shinkansen maglev project linking Tokyo and Nagoya has been approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT).
This month JR Central will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the world's first purpose-built high-speed railway. David Briginshaw explains the significance of this event and charts the development of the Shinkansen.
JR East and JR West have revealed the service pattern for the 228km Nagano – Kanazawa section of the Hokuriku Shinkansen, which is due to open on March 14 2015.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on September 18 by the chairman Indian Railways (IR) Mr Arunendra Kumar and the head of China Railway Corporation (CRC) Mr Lu Dongfu for a joint pre-feasibility study into constructing a high-speed line.
MITSUBISHI Electric says its Station Energy Saving Inverter (S-EIV) has saved approximately 600kWh of electricity per day, equivalent to the power consumption of 60 households since it was installed at Tokyo Metro's Myoden station in June.
JR EAST and its subsidiary Tokyo Monorail have announced two projects to improve rail and monorail connections to Tokyo Haneda Airport as part of the Japanese government's policy to boost the number of tourists visiting Japan.
The Australian federal government has revealed that plans for a high-speed rail link along Australia's east coast are still on the drawing board following a number of high-level meetings with Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and French rail companies.
