International Railroad Discussion > Shinkansen Toys, Media, Miscellaneous (Japan)

I had originally planned to post this in symph1's thread discussing the 60th Anniversary of the Tokaido Shinkansen:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,5925404

I've visited Japan several times this year, including in October a few weeks after the official celebration on October 1. In the first photo, the small book to the left is the month's system schedule, and the cover photos celebrate the 60th Anniversary, Class 0 to the left, Class 100 on top right, Class 300 in the middle, and the newest Class N700S on the bottom right.

Japan Railfan Magazine is on the right, with Class 0 on the cover.

System schedule is published monthly, and still available at most bookstores. Digital Age has reduced its use, but I ran into a young woman using the paper version recently, so the smart folks don't rely on the Smartphone. There are at least 2 publishers still competing in the marketplace.

2nd photo shows the page in the schedule of Tokaido Shinkansen outbound departures in the 6 am hour. Outbound would be westbound direction out of Tokyo. Black diamond on top indicates extras/seasonal runs with fine print describing which days they run.

3rd photo has collection of Shinkansen photos to start the 60th Anniversary article. Detailed specs and technological advances are discussed in the following pages (not shown).

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In the first photo to the top left is a box. It's part of McDonald's Japan's "Happy Set" otherwise known as Happy Meal. Usually in the autumn every year, train toys come with the Happy Set.

I first bought the Happy Set in 2018:
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,4681872

Instead of a disposable blue bag in 2018, the train toy came in a collectible box in 2024.

I wasn't planning on going to McDonald's in Japan this year, except that I was on a long overnight train journey, and was hungry. I saw the "Big M" near a train station, so I went there, noticed that Happy Meal had train toys, so I bought one + "Tsukimi Burger" or Moon-watching Burger, which is basically a hamburger with Egg McMuffin style poached egg. Available seasonally.

When you get the Happy Set toy, you don't know what you'll get until you open it. There's always one that's a surprise "?" You can see the possible selection in the first image of this post (4th image of the thread).

The "?" happened to be a Class 0 Shinkansen, to coincide with the 60th Anniversary... and I got it on my first try! Dr. Yellow luck? The gold medallion to the right activates the mechanical spring inside, to "launch" the toy to roll.

The last photo in this post shows my "collection," Dr. Yellow and Class 500 from 2018, and the Class 0 with the stickers on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/24 15:31 by cchan006.

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Plarail is quite the franchise in Japan. It's the brainchild of Tomy Corporation, which started business in 1924 by selling airplane toys. At train-related museums and events, there's almost always a Plarail play area for the kids. Example from 2016:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,5578946,5578952#5578952

McDonald's Happy Set version of the toy train is a "shorty" version of the Plarail bought at retail stores. It helps McDonald's, but with the promotional materials for the "full size" Plarail included with the Happy Set, it also helps Tomy, too. FYI, Tomy is now TakaraTomy after a merger of 2 toy corporations in 2006.

Another cultural phenomenon in Japan is "Gachapon" or "Gashapon" or capsule toys, typically bought from plastic vending machines with rotating knobs. This is the brainchild of Bandai, another toy corporation. Tomy also makes capsule toys and vending machines, and the train version is known as Capsule Plarail, smaller than either the Happy Set and full size Plarail versions.

"Full size" Plarail is about HO scale size, and Capsule Plarail is about N scale size.

- Found a Gashapon machine selling Shinkansen Capsule Plarail.

- Got lucky in 4 tries (4x300, or 1200 Yen), got a Doctor Yellow. Other tries were lucky, too, which I'll report on another time.

- My Capsule Plarail Shinkansen collection. The leftmost is a motorized N700 at a fancier vending machine (electric buttons, not plastic knobs) I found at Hamamatsucho Station in 2021 during the pandemic. It's no longer there. The "clear plastic" Doctor Yellow set (mechanical windup) I bought online. Class 200 (similar in look to the Class 0) along with the Doctor Yellow end car I bought from "Gashapon."

In the background in the last photo is a Tenshodo box, and I'm preparing a separate report on that.
 

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West Japan Railway (JR West) has announced the eventual retirement of the Class 500, my and many people's favorite "bullet-est looking" Shinkansen. Of the 6 sets currently in service, 4 of them are scheduled to be retired by the end of 2026. The other 2 sets are scheduled to be retired in 2027.

Doctor Yellow is also scheduled to be retired soon. JR Tokai's (JR Central) T4 set will be retired next month (January 2025) and JR West's T5 set in 2027.

I stumbled upon a Class 500 while heading west to catch a steam excursion. That's the first train in the video, at Shin Yamaguchi.

I talked about "rotating seats with a push of a button" in an earlier thread, and here's a video of the seats being automatically turned around. This is inside an E5 set at Tokyo Station.

While riding an E5 from Sendai to Tokyo, there was constant flashing outside at 315-320 km/h, so I recorded video of that. That's electrical sparks from pantograph/catenary interaction at speed inside a long tunnel.

Joetsu Shinkansen E7 set is approaching Jomo Kogen Station in the last clip. Due to a heavy travel day, all regular reserved seats were sold out. I expected standing room only in the non-reserved section, so I decided to splurge and bought a GranClass ticket for this train. GranClass is more luxurious than Green Class which has been considered "First Class" for many generations.

Normally, I would have withstood the standing room only which I've done countless times before, and I'm used to it, but I spent my hard-earned money to satisfy TO members' curiosity.

- GranClass compartment.
- Fancy seat controls on the armrest.
- Video as described above.

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Here is another Shinkansen-related toy.

Lapita called itself "High-quality & Grown-up Style Magazine," published between 1994 and 2008. I bought an issue in March of 2005 specifically due to Z-scale-ish Shinkansen toy included with the magazine. This is the year I attended the World Expo in Nagoya.

My impression is that the magazine catered to young professional adults, as there's one article discussing "The World's Fast & Fun Car Observatory" which compares European hot hatchbacks from VW, Opal, Audi, BMW, and Renault. There are other car-related articles on the Jaguar XJ6 and Honda's experimental hydrogen fuel cell compact car. Within the Honda article, author discusses riding on the prop-jet YS-11, Japan's only domestically produced airliner at the time, scheduled for retirement in 2006.

That's besides the several train-related articles in the magazine, talking about past "retired" EMUs from Tokyo railroads still in service in rural areas on "local lines." There's also an article on JNR era DMUs Kiha 58s an Kiha 52s still in service. And there's the feature article on Shinkansen's 40+ year history and the Class 1000 A & B prototypes used for testing. The Z scale toy is based on the A set.

It ceased publication in late 2008, possibly due to the Digital Age where young folks chose to collect information from the Internet. Cell phone addiction had already taken off in Japan before 2008. Anyway, good times from ~20 years ago.

- Lapita Magazine, March 2005.
- Size comparison of toys, Lapita's vs. McDonald's.

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Here's a food-related post on the Shinkansen.

Due to the incremental increases in top revenue speed, from 130 mph to 168 mph and beyond, it became impractical to have dining and cafe cars onboard the Shinkansen to have the food prepared onboard as the travel times decreased. As discussed in symph1's thread earlier, dining cars were discontinued around 2000, and cafe cars 2003.

Food cart service is still available onboard some (but not all) Shinkansen trains, and bento boxes can be bought there, or better yet, at train stations where selections are plenty.

- McDonald's Happy Set + Tsukimi Burger mentioned earlier.
- Tokaido Shinkansen 60th Anniversary Bento.
- What's inside.

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Here's more food-related stuff:

My favorite bento box in 2024 is the Kobe Sukiyaki & Steak bento, which I bought on a whim before rushing to board a Shinkansen train at Tokyo station.

While "Kobe" is part of the name, it doesn't say Kobe Beef (神戸牛), so the meat is not necessarily from an expensive cut of Kobe or other Wagyu beef. But the bento comes with a heating pad, so you can eat it warm anytime (before expiration).

I tried a heating pad bento back in 2014. Somewhat on topic as that was during the 50th Anniversary of the Shinkansen:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,3715328,3715339#3715339

I ran across a Station Bento Festival ("Ekiben Matsuri") at Shin-Yamaguchi in western Japan, as part of the Railroad Day Celebration on October 14. The organizer collected the most popular bento from all over Japan, and I found out AFTER I tried the Kobe Sukiyaki & Steak bento that it was on their list. Long line at the festival, and this bento was sold out pretty quickly. I was happy to see that other bentos I've tried (seafood bento from Toyama) was also on the list.

I also bought a can of "craft" beer to go with my beef bento, Tokyo Craft Pale Ale. Craft beer scene hasn't "exploded" like it has in the U.S., but it's starting to catch on. This one was made by a major brewery, Suntory, so to fit mainstream tastes, I didn't expect any bold flavors and that was the case. But compared to popular beers in Japan (Asahi Dry, Kirin, Ebisu), subtle balance of citrus and malt was very welcoming complement to my beef bento.

The last image shows the Carbon Oxide based heating pad, activated by pulling a string, underneath the food. Pulling the string mixes the water and carbon oxide coal inside the pad and starts the heating process, and you can hear the whooshing sound of steam, and sometimes see a little vapor.

That's it for now - I think I ran out of things to add to this thread.

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What a fascinating look into a land my wife and I would love to visit again!  Thanks for thinking to post pics and thoughts of all these day-to-day items we rarely give a second thought to. Happy New Year!

Jerry
ATSF5669

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

An amazing post, Charles— well done! I need to travel there and experience for myself someday for sure!
Side note: I’m sure you read PTJ Editor Kevin J Holland’s feature on the Shinkansen. Like you, he’s an expert on the train and highly recommended that I make the trip there someday!!

Looks like the Shikansen arrives and departs the stations at a faster speed than Amtrak operates through many towns.

what gauge is it again i know you told us a couple years ago

dan Wrote:
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> what gauge is it again i know you told us a couple
> years ago

Here's a thread from ~7 months ago that you probably missed, which has better answers than from couple of years ago:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,5867970

Shinkansen is 1435 mm, or 5' 8.5", what we call standard gauge. 

Years ago, someone asked me the gauge for JR Freight trains repeatedly, despite my answering him every time. Just knowing the gauges doesn't really help appreciate railroading in Japan, so it's my opinion that it's not that important, and it won't win you any Trivial Pursuit contests. Hope you give yourself a chance to visit Japan and experience it. Then, as wzd did in the above link, knowing the gauges becomes more relevant.

A stupid question here I know, but does Japan even use box cars? I don't see any industrial spurs anywhere on Google maps. Am I just not seeing any? I still can't get over the limited train length of, 20 or 21 cars?

Ton's of interesting content in this post. Kills me to think that if California was serious about HSR instead of pillaging the public coffers how this would have been an ideal model.

Orient Wrote:
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> A stupid question here I know, but does Japan even
> use box cars? I don't see any industrial spurs
> anywhere on Google maps. Am I just not seeing any?
> I still can't get over the limited train length
> of, 20 or 21 cars?

Not a stupid question, actually. You asked the question about JR Freight's train length 10 years ago, and I got you a more definitive answer 3 years later:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,4407958,4411140#4411140

This in regards to why JR Freight trains are no longer than 26 cars. Limitation is weight. On routes with consistently less payload, ~20 cars are assigned to those runs.

As for why there aren't any boxcars anymore, they were phased out starting in the mid-1980s. Last boxcar train was in 2012, a "unit train" of boxcars carrying paper products.

Japan started running container trains in the early 1960s. "Takara-Go" is the famous example that ran between Shiodome (Tokyo) and Umeda (Osaka). Shiodome Freight Terminal closed operations in 1986, and Umeda Freight Terminal in 2013. Both yard locations have been converted by major redevelopment. Shiodome's transformation is complete, and Umeda's transformatioin ("Umekita" which I briefly reported on earlier) is ongoing.

I'll try to discuss much more about these in the future. But trucking has basically ended Japan's loose car railroading about 4 decades ago.
 

IC_2024 Wrote:
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> Side note: I’m sure you read PTJ Editor Kevin J
> Holland’s feature on the Shinkansen. Like you,
> he’s an expert on the train and highly
> recommended that I make the trip there someday!!

I haven't had a chance to read Kevin Holland's article... will have to look for it.

What makes the Shinkansen such a success is the supporting railroad network (non-HSR) behind it. Hope you spend lots of time there, and get to experience the non-HSR trains, too. TO members (and I) are looking forward to your perspective as a professional railroader!

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> Ton's of interesting content in this post. Kills
> me to think that if California was serious about
> HSR instead of pillaging the public coffers how
> this would have been an ideal model.

His experience in Japan probably had something to do with former Governor Brown's inspiration for a "California Bullet Train." 

There's longing for overnight travel (Spirit of California) that TO members still express in the Passenger Discussions, and that mode of travel continued to thrive well into the 2010s in Japan, until a combination of faster Shinkansen revenue speeds and growth of budget-priced business hotels made travellers transition away from sleeper trains.

The last regularly-scheduled sleeper train, the Sunrise Limited Express, is sold out most of the time. I got to ride it a few times this year, but that's due to my exploiting last minute cancellations. One such last minute ride led to me being hungry to go to McDonald's, as mentioned above.

So the "exotic transportation" narrative that killed the Spirit of California might have also killed the seriousness of CA HSR, since most Californians never got to understand the importance of rail travel, non-HSR. Had that not happened, maybe Amtrak California would have had more leverage against the Class I railroads to have a bigger network now? That would have led to more urgency with the CA HSR project. Just speculating here.

I do recall the answer being given to the short train lengths which is why I said I couldn't get over it,not that I didn't know why. I appreciate the answer about loose car loads being a thing of the past. It does lead me to wonder if that would ever be reversed if the need arose or not. I don't see how any spur tracks could even be built in Japan as the infrastructure doesn't seem too accomidating to numerous switches and short spur tracks.

Orient Wrote:
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> I appreciate the answer about loose car loads being a thing of
> the past. It does lead me to wonder if that would ever be reversed
> if the need arose or not. I don't see how any spur tracks could
> even be built in Japan as the infrastructure doesn't seem too
> accomidating to numerous switches and short spur tracks.

I'd speculate that the chance of loose car railroading coming back in Japan is slim to none. Any abandoned industrial spurs long enough to accomodate an excursion gets converted. Otherwise, current crazy fad of redevelopment have taken away the necessary land needed for the come back.

But there's still a small number of industrial spurs remaining, mainly to deal with raw materials (ore, coal, cement, rocks). I've caught a handful of those trains for future reports, but other operations are still on my checklist.