Tōhoku Shinkansen
Tōhoku Shinkansen (東北新幹線) is a line of Shinkansen high speed rail, connecting Tokyo with Hachinohe in Aomori for a total length of 593.0 km. It runs through the Tohoku region of Japan's main island Honshu. The line is operated by East Japan Railway Company.
Timeline
- June 1982: Omiya-Morioka
- March 1985: Ueno-Omiya
- June 1991: Tokyo-Ueno
- December 2002: Morioka-Hachinohe
An extension from Hachinohe to Shin-Aomori is under construction and is scheduled for completion around 2010. From Aomori, there are plans to continue the line under the name Hokkaido Shinkansen, passing through the Seikan Tunnel to Shin-Hakodate on Hokkaido, and eventually all the way to Sapporo.
The mountainous terrain that the line passes through has necessitated heavy reliance on tunnels. The Iwateichinohe Tunnel on the Morioka-Hachinohe stretch, completed in 2000, was briefly the longest land rail tunnel at 25.8 km, but in 2005 it was superseded by the Hakkoda Tunnel on the extension to Aomori, at 26.5 km. The Lötschberg Base Tunnel in Switzerland has now superseded both.
Trains
There are currently three types of trains in operation:
- Hayate, Tokyo-Hachinohe express, starting December 2002
- Yamabiko, Tokyo-Sendai express, then local to Morioka starting June 1982
- Nasuno, Tokyo-Koriyama local, starting 1995
One train has been discontinued:
Through trains on the Akita Shinkansen and Yamagata Shinkansen lines also run on Tohoku Shinkansen tracks from Morioka and Fukushima respectively.
List of stations
Further Reading
- . ISBN 0415320526.
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