Why Japan has such good railways • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#61

Post by stephen_g » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

SeanLuke wrote: post #46

It's generally regarded that Hong Kong has the best subway in the world. There are many reasons for this, but one cannot be overstated: Hong Kong's geography. A huge portion of the city consists of long thin urban corridors sandwiched between mountains and the sea. As a result, Hong Kong need concentrate its funding on only a few subway lines to support a huge portion of the population. This good article aside, I won…

Geography like that does help a lot, it’s part of the reason it’s so easy to do really good high-speed rail in Italy over somewhere like Germany that is way more spread out. But it’s only half the picture, you also need the political will to get it built!

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#62

Post by skl3977 » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

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Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#63

Post by titzer » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

dwroberts wrote: post #13

amazingamazing wrote: post #3

the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was just in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized acc…

Objections to large projects exist everywhere all over the world. The reason the US has such an issue with this is because of state autonomy (and corruption). Most other places in the world don’t allow subregions of the country to do whatever they want and make up laws etc

The US interstate system is incredible extensive, uniform, and well-maintained (relatively speaking). States love federal dollars, and if there were federal dollars for train lines, they'd fall over themselves to get them. That doesn't seem to happen for a lot of reasons. It seems like there are a lot of corruption problems that seem to eat up train projects, but for some reason the interstate system, though replete with plenty of boondoggles, is an unstoppable road-spreading machine.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#64

Post by andrewl » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

SeanLuke wrote: post #46

It's generally regarded that Hong Kong has the best subway in the world. There are many reasons for this, but one cannot be overstated: Hong Kong's geography. A huge portion of the city consists of long thin urban corridors sandwiched between mountains and the sea. As a result, Hong Kong need concentrate its funding on only a few subway lines to support a huge portion of the population. This good article aside, I won…

Yes. You get a lot of bang for your buck as far as the number of people served. Hong Kong is less than half the area of Rhode Island, but the populations are 7.5 million for Hong Kong and 1.1 million for Rhode Island. Small area plus high population density is the situation where trains are most valuable.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#65

Post by thfuran » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #57

bluefirebrand wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can live without a high speed train. They cannot live without a clean water supply Seems to me that the priorities are correct

Hard to imagine how a train that has no emissions itself as its catenary powered causes your water supply to be unclean.

Trains bring people who drink water.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#66

Post by Avicebron » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #57

bluefirebrand wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People can live without a high speed train. They cannot live without a clean water supply Seems to me that the priorities are correct

Hard to imagine how a train that has no emissions itself as its catenary powered causes your water supply to be unclean.

pretty sure it's the tunneling not the train itself

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#67

Post by titzer » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #5

amazingamazing wrote: post #3

the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was just in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized acc…

I’m not American, so only have an outsider perspective, but I’m not convinced that’s possible in the US to do the same, because the country has a completely different perspective on individual rights. Land ownership seems to be seen as something sacred that cannot be infringed in any way, meaning a small group of people who own some parts of the land can block any development that would benefit the public at large

This is mostly true until it's time to build an interstate.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#68

Post by delecti » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #36

jmull wrote: post #33

I’d think Japan being a long, skinny, population dense country has to help. There’s just more potential in every km of rail laid.

Is that not similar to both the west and east coasts of the US?

WRT the west coast, mostly. It's about as long as Japan, but only about half the population. It's certainly populated enough that it's not justifiable that rail travel is so slow.

Less so for the east coast though. From roughly DC to Boston is decently connected with rail, but is not nearly as direct of a corridor as Japan.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#69

Post by rwmj » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #58

rwmj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. How would private equity buy them unless they were private companies already?

The point is that Japan has a well-established private-equity industry [1] so the fact that PE firms haven't ruined Japanese railways suggests that PE firms aren't universal corrosive solvents like you seem to want us to believe they are. [1] https://flippa.com/blog/pe-funds/japan-private-equity-firms/

Or it could be there are Japanese laws or customs preventing them from doing it. The article mentions maximum fare prices for example. Japanese antitrust law is strong and thoroughly enforced.

Re: Why Japan has such good railways

#70

Post by retired » Sat, Apr 18, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

testing22321 wrote: post #8

amazingamazing wrote: post #3

the railways are excellent, but it's funny. I was just in Kyoto and saw flyers seemingly at every single temple opposing the Hokuriku Shinkansen extension. apparently this type of opposition has always existed (I looked at the history of trains in Japan and originally most Japanese did NOT want it at all because they thought it looked really ugly), like nimbys in USA, but such decisions are apparently federalized acc…

It can’t work in the US, because it’s not a society that works together for the collective good, or to raise everyone’s quality of life. It’s a bunch of individuals in a dog eat dog situation who happen to live nearby.

Same in The Netherlands. There are companies that buy plots of lands near existing rail just to massively screw over the government if they ever want to expend rail. Double digit million euro deals over small patches of land.