International Railroad Discussion > Shinkansen action at Odawara

I had the chance to about an hour at the Odawara station along the JR Tokaido Shinkansen line between Tokyo and Nagoya and watch the bullet trains fly by...well, except for the Kodama and some Hikari service trains, which pull over to let the faster express and Nozomi trains pass.
Everything is tightly choreographed - if a Kodama pulls in and stops, you know one or two faster trains will zip by before its let back out on the main to continue. 
The 16-car N700 trainsets are huge, with up to 1,323 seats arranged in 3-2 configuration in regular class and 2-2 in the "Green" class. Considering that they run on 4-min. headways at peak times, they can move a lot of people pretty quickly!
 

You must be a registered subscriber to watch videos. Join Today!

Some stills....
An N700 Kodama sits patiently for the express trains to pass.
And an impatient conductor makes sure departure is on-time. (The stats are something like .06% late trains)

---

---

I am amazed with how the Japanese have provided a first class passenger railroad system for their country. Even the attendants are first class and their is no doibt that their population uses their ssystem to the fullist when one sees the length of their trains. Excelent video and thank you.

Jim
Hatboro, PA​​

Agree, excellent video.  The effect of the train windows passing you is very different.  

My I assume the guard, about midway through the video, was pointing out an on coming train?  
That was classy.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

HOLY SH*T BATMAN! That was AWESOME! Thank you for sharing!!!

ntharalson Wrote:
> My I assume the guard, about midway through the
> video, was pointing out an on coming train?  
> That was classy.

There is a lot of pointing in Japanese railroading!
It seems to be an action to acknowledge a signal or procedure (I'll have a video about this soon).
Engineers wear white gloves and point to every signal indication as they approach the signals, and they point to their schedule board in the cab before moving the marker down at each station. (Maybe they have inward-facing security cameras in the cab?).
Station platform guards seem to be pointing at the security cameras - presumably because a station master is watching from somewhere, so as to indicate they are alert and on the job.
Conductors in the back of the train lean out and point to the platform guard and the cameras.
Imagine that degree of attention happening on Amtrak!

Fantastic video! I got to go to Japan in 1998 for a week, and we rode trains all over. I have tons of photos, but no video. 
I remember standing in a station somewhere and noticing the ballast was glued down. Then when a new buller train flashed by, I realized why.
Thanks for sharing!
Mike
 

This is embarrassing for the US....Great video,

jonjonjonjon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ntharalson Wrote:
> > My I assume the guard, about midway through the
> > video, was pointing out an on coming train?  
> > That was classy.
>
> There is a lot of pointing in Japanese
> railroading!
> It seems to be an action to acknowledge a signal
> or procedure (I'll have a video about this soon).
> Engineers wear white gloves and point to every
> signal indication as they approach the signals,
> and they point to their schedule board in the cab
> before moving the marker down at each station.
> (Maybe they have inward-facing security cameras in
> the cab?).
> Station platform guards seem to be pointing at the
> security cameras - presumably because a station
> master is watching from somewhere, so as to
> indicate they are alert and on the job.
> Conductors in the back of the train lean out and
> point to the platform guard and the cameras.
> Imagine that degree of attention happening on
> Amtrak!

Surprisingly this does happen here in the US. The New York MTA adopted the "point at a sign" rule for subway conductors. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9jIsxQNz0M


 

My rough calculation based on how fast a trainset passes a fixed point is 145 mph going through Odawara, but the top speed is 177 mph. elsewher between Tokyo and Osaka. 
A 16-car trainset is 1327.7ft. long and in one shot took 6.297 seconds to pass.
In my other video...
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3832778
A 16-car trainset passes in 5.4 sec., which works out to 171 mph.
Somebody check my math (I went to art school after all)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/15 18:15 by jonjonjonjon.

Awsome video thanks for sharing.  What I was amazed by was how clean the cars were.  It was as if each one just got out of a wash machine instead of a dark and possibly durty tunnel.  The only dirt I saw was with the one still along the door hinge. Plus the "wing" which I guess is used to protect the motor was interesting.  I thought at first it was some sort of device to settle the wind or something.  Imagine if we had that here instead of cars gridlocked all over the place.  I live south of Washington DC USA by about an hour and I-95 is a total parking lot and there is nothing that can be done except for maybe building above it. 
Thanks again for sharing and 3rd_Raton thanks for sharing the NYC video, that was funny. 

Rusty
North Stafford VA
West of the RF&P mainline

 

I'd like to add that the turnaround time for the Shinkansen is amazing. In Tokyo, one will pull in, everyoe is unloaded within 5 minutes and then a small army of car cleaners sweeps through the train. Then all of the seats automatically rotate to face the other direction, and they're good to go! 15-20 min. tops. No dwell time or need to head off to a service track.

jonjonjonjon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ntharalson Wrote:
> > My I assume the guard, about midway through the
> > video, was pointing out an on coming train?  
> > That was classy.
>
> There is a lot of pointing in Japanese
> railroading!
> It seems to be an action to acknowledge a signal
> or procedure (I'll have a video about this soon).
> Engineers wear white gloves and point to every
> signal indication as they approach the signals,
> and they point to their schedule board in the cab
> before moving the marker down at each station.
> (Maybe they have inward-facing security cameras in
> the cab?).
> Station platform guards seem to be pointing at the
> security cameras - presumably because a station
> master is watching from somewhere, so as to
> indicate they are alert and on the job.
> Conductors in the back of the train lean out and
> point to the platform guard and the cameras.
> Imagine that degree of attention happening on
> Amtrak!

I wouldn't call them "platform guards." I believe the man is a station staff, an assistant station master, or even the station master himself. Like how a U.S. conductor might highball a train he meets, the station staff is highballing the train to see if everything is OK, and pointing is part of his training. Security cameras or not, this has been a practice for many decades, so the staff isn't doing this just to appease the boss.

The conductor pointing to the closed-circuit monitor is making sure a hazard wasn't spotted in areas of the train he might not be able to see with his naked eye. This is very common for long trains (Shikansens), and curved platforms, and Odawara meets both criteria. In your second pic, the conductor is a woman, so I should say he or she.

The pointing at signals, schedule sheet, and so forth are routines that have been practiced for decades, too. If you listen carefully, you should be able to hear the engineer talk to himself, "出発、進行!" when he departs from the first station of his run. Occasionally, you might see a supervisor hop in for a check ride.

I've yet to spot an inward facing camera inside the cab of a Japanese train. You got a good look of inside the cab in your other videos, and it's pretty easy to view the cab from all angles, for example, through the windshield from a station platform.

Anyway, your theory that all the pointing keeps the Japanese railroad employees alert is probably the reason why they've been trained to do so almost everywhere. I've seen railroad employees do this in very remote areas where they wouldn't have to worry about cameras, bosses, or they are the bosses themselves.

jonjonjonjon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My rough calculation based on how fast a trainset
> passes a fixed point is 145 mph going through
> Odawara, but the top speed is 177 mph. elsewher
> between Tokyo and Osaka. 
> A 16-car trainset is 1327.7ft. long and in one
> shot took 6.297 seconds to pass.
> In my other video...
> http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3
> 832778
> A 16-car trainset passes in 5.4 sec., which works
> out to 171 mph.
> Somebody check my math (I went to art school after
> all)

Your math is good enough. Nitpicking would be useless. :-)

I immediately started my research after I viewed your video. I've been to Odawara to record Shinkansen video before, but that was in 1999, where I met my first Series 500 at speed. Because of that, I already knew where to look for the following information:

700 Series Shinkansen's top speed through Odawara is 245 km/h (152 mph). They can't go faster since 700 Series do not have active suspension for tilting, and Odawara is on a curve.

N700 Series (the newer one is low headlights) can go 270 km/h (168 mph) through Odawara. They do have active suspension.

Last March, JR Central announced a speed increase from 270 km/h to 285 km/h (177 mph) between Tokyo and Osaka, the oldest and original segment of the Shinkansen system. Whether or not the speed increase applies to Odawara, I'm not sure. My guess is that it doesn't, since the curve is rather tight through Odawara, pushing the limits of N700's active suspension. However, I can try to measure speed with a GPS through there on my next visit, like how I measured speeds on the E5 and E6 on the Tohoku Shinkansen last year.

jonjonjonjon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to add that the turnaround time for the
> Shinkansen is amazing. In Tokyo, one will pull in,
> everyoe is unloaded within 5 minutes and then a
> small army of car cleaners sweeps through the
> train. Then all of the seats automatically rotate
> to face the other direction, and they're good to
> go! 15-20 min. tops. No dwell time or need to head
> off to a service track.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,3751089

This would have been easier to find for everyone had the thread been titled correctly. Since I posted in that thread, I used the keywords "cleaning angels" to find it.

Actually, there are replacement train sets ready when a train set needs to go to a yard for more thorough service. I got to see them come and go at Tamachi while waiting for Doctor Yellow back in May. So the Shinkansen Cleaning Angels do get occasional breaks from the never ending flow of trains.

jonjonjonjon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to add that the turnaround time for the
> Shinkansen is amazing. In Tokyo, one will pull in,
> everyoe is unloaded within 5 minutes and then a
> small army of car cleaners sweeps through the
> train. Then all of the seats automatically rotate
> to face the other direction, and they're good to
> go! 15-20 min. tops. No dwell time or need to head
> off to a service track.

The automatic rotating seats are the first I heard off. That was certainly a costly feature. Amazing turn around time. It helps that the passengers are neat and do not leave garbage around, I assume. Is there no service from around 2300 to 0500 for maintenance?

> Is there no service from around 2300 to 0500 for
> maintenance?

Interesting blog on lack of 24-hours trains ANYWHERE in Japan:
http://howibecametexan.com/2013/07/03/why-dont-japanese-trains-run-24-hours-things-i-dont-understand-about-japan/

I was on a late-arriving flight, Shanghai to Narita. The airline had charter busses for us, as we'd missed the last train.

symph1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Is there no service from around 2300 to 0500
> for
> > maintenance?
>
> Interesting blog on lack of 24-hours trains
> ANYWHERE in Japan:
> http://howibecametexan.com/2013/07/03/why-dont-jap
> anese-trains-run-24-hours-things-i-dont-understand
> -about-japan/
>
> I was on a late-arriving flight, Shanghai to
> Narita. The airline had charter busses for us, as
> we'd missed the last train.

On the Shinkansen, 11 pm to 5 am is for maintenance, but it seems the Japanese did not take the plunge and provide 24 hour service like the New York City Subway system. For megalopolis like Tokyo and Osaka, it can be inconvenient for the night revelers, but great for taxi drivers who collect extra 30% during those hours. The rush out of a bar to the train station to catch the last train is sort of a ritual in Japan.

Freight trains do run 24 hours on the JR network, so a more accurate statement would be no 24 hour passenger train services in Japan.

nm2320 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The automatic rotating seats are the first I heard
> off. That was certainly a costly feature. Amazing
> turn around time. It helps that the passengers are
> neat and do not leave garbage around, I assume. Is
> there no service from around 2300 to 0500 for
> maintenance?

The automatic rotating seats have been a feature on the Shinkansen going back to 1964. Even the original 0 series sets had them, and this based on the video documentary I obtained during the 50th Anniversary last October.

Great video. Amazing operation.