The Shinkansen (Japanese: 新幹線; [ɕiŋkaꜜɰ̃seɴ] , lit. 'new main line'), colloquially known in English as the bullet train, is a network of primarily high-speed railway lines in Japan. The system was developed to provide connections between Tokyo and other regions of the country. In addition to long-distance services, some sections in and around the largest metropolitan areas are used for commuter travel.
The first line, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, opened shortly before the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. The 552.6-kilometre (343.4 mi) route connects Tōkyō, Yokohama, Nagoya, and Ōsaka, the four largest cities in Japan. It remains the busiest line in the network, carrying 161 million passengers in fiscal 2023 and more than 6.5 billion passengers in total since opening. During peak periods, up to 16 trains per hour operate in each direction, using 16-car trainsets with a seating capacity of 1,323 and a minimum scheduled headway of three minutes.
Since the opening of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the network has expanded to include 2,951.3 kilometres (1,833.9 mi) of lines with maximum operating speeds ranging from 260 to 320 kilometres per hour (160 to 200 mph), the latter achieved on a 387.5-kilometre (240.8 mi) section of the Tōhoku Shinkansen. The network also includes 283.5 kilometres (176.2 mi) of mini-Shinkansen lines with maximum speeds of 130 kilometres per hour (81 mph) and 10.3 kilometres (6.4 mi) of spur lines with Shinkansen services. Shinkansen services operate to most major cities on the islands of Honshu and Kyushu and extend to Hakodate on Hokkaido, with an extension to Sapporo under construction and scheduled to open at the end of fiscal year 2038. In 2024, the Shinkansen network recorded 385.9 million passenger journeys.
The highest speed recorded on the Shinkansen network for conventional rail is 443 km/h (275 mph), achieved by the Class 955 (300X) in 1996, while a speed of 603 km/h (375 mph) was achieved by the L0 Series Maglev in 2015 on the Yamanashi Maglev Test Line (part of the Chūō Shinkansen).
The distinctive geographical conditions of Japan present particular challenges to increasing the operating speed of the Shinkansen. The country is prone to frequent earthquakes, features soft ground conditions and mountainous terrain, includes regions subject to heavy snowfall, and faces spatial constraints in urban areas. Compared with high speed railways in other countries, Shinkansen lines have narrower track spacing between opposing directions, smaller minimum curve radii, and smaller tunnel cross sections, all of which are disadvantageous for higher speeds. The elongated and complex streamlined nose profiles seen in more recent Shinkansen rolling stock, which differ from those of many foreign high speed trains, are designed to mitigate the intense noise resembling an explosive sound generated by compression waves when trains enter tunnels with relatively small cross sections, a phenomenon often referred to as a tunnel boom, thereby ensuring compliance with stringent noise regulations.
Commercial operation at 360 km/h (224 mph), raising the current maximum speed on the Shinkansen network from 320 km/h (199 mph), is planned to begin following the full opening of the Hokkaidō Shinkansen in the late 2030s. In addition, commercial operation by maglev at 505 km/h (314 mph) is planned with the opening of the Chūō Shinkansen between Tokyo and Nagoya.
Shinkansen (新幹線) literally means 'new main line' or 'new trunk line' in Japanese. The term is used to refer both to the dedicated high-speed railway infrastructure and to the trains that operate on it.
In English, Shinkansen trains are commonly referred to as the bullet train. This expression is a literal translation of the Japanese nickname dangan ressha (弾丸列車), which dates to 1939 and was originally applied to early high-speed rail proposals during the initial planning stages of the project. The name later became firmly associated with Shinkansen services due to their high operating speeds and the distinctive, bullet-like profile of the original 0 Series Shinkansen trains.
Japan was the first country to construct railway lines dedicated to high-speed travel. Owing to the country's mountainous terrain, the pre-existing rail network was built primarily to a 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) narrow-gauge and followed indirect alignments. These lines could not be readily adapted for sustained high-speed operation because of inherent technical limitations, including lower permissible speeds on curves compared with wider gauges. For example, a curve allowing a maximum speed of 145 kilometres per hour (90 mph) on standard-gauge track would typically be limited to around 130 kilometres per hour (81 mph) on narrow-gauge track. As a result, Japan had a greater need to construct entirely new high-speed lines than countries whose existing standard- or broad-gauge networks offered greater potential for incremental upgrades.
The term Shinkansen was first formally used in 1940, to describe a proposed standard-gauge passenger and freight railway between Tokyo and Shimonoseki. The line was intended to be operated by steam and electric locomotives at speeds of up to 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph). Over the following three years, the Ministry of Railways developed increasingly ambitious plans to extend the route to Beijing—via a proposed tunnel to Korea—and onward to Singapore, forming part of a projected Greater East Asia Railroad serving the Japanese Empire. The network was also envisioned to connect with the Trans-Siberian Railway and other major trunk lines across Asia. These plans were abandoned in 1943 as Japan's strategic position in World War II deteriorated. Nevertheless, limited construction had already begun, and three tunnels built during this period were later incorporated into the present-day Tōkaidō Shinkansen.
Following the end of World War II, high-speed rail was forgotten for several years while traffic of passengers and freight steadily increased on the conventional Tōkaidō Main Line along with the reconstruction of Japanese industry and economy. By the mid-1950s the Tōkaidō Line was operating at full capacity, and the Ministry of Railways decided to revisit the Shinkansen project. In 1957, Odakyu Electric Railway introduced its 3000 series SE Romancecar train, setting a world speed record of 145 km/h (90 mph) for a narrow-gauge train when JNR leased a trainset in order to perform high-speed tests. This train gave designers the confidence that they could safely build an even faster standard-gauge train. Thus the first Shinkansen, the 0 series, was built on the success of the Romancecar.
In the 1950s, prevailing opinion in Japan held that railways would soon become obsolete, following trends in the United States toward air travel and highway construction. In contrast, Shinji Sogō, president of Japanese National Railways (JNR), strongly advocated the viability of high-speed rail and played a decisive role in securing political support for the Shinkansen project. Technical leadership was provided by Hideo Shima, JNR's chief engineer. Other major contributors included Tadanao Miki, Tadashi Matsudaira, and Hajime Kawanabe of the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), then part of JNR. This group was responsible for much of the engineering work on the first Shinkansen line, the Tōkaidō Shinkansen. All three had prior experience in aircraft design during World War II.
Government approval came in December 1958, and construction of the first segment of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka started in April 1959. The cost of constructing the Shinkansen was at first estimated at nearly 200 billion yen,(equivalent to ¥1.239294631884×1012 in 2024) which was raised in the form of a government loan, railway bonds and a low-interest loan of US$80 million (equivalent to $883,561,644 in 2025) from the World Bank. Initial estimates, however, were understated and the actual cost was about 380 billion yen. As the budget shortfall became clear in 1963, Sogō resigned to take responsibility.