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The secrets of the Shinkansen

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Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#71

Post by Tor3 »

aposm wrote: post #60
timr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically. Yeah, I defy anyone who claims the US can't build trains "because of density" to fly to Tokyo, and actually take the Seibu Shinjuku line west from Shinjuku station. Look at those buildings built right next to the tracks , for many, many kilometers. People live in those -- if the windows open…

I think a big part of it is also that (partly because of the necessity of building for earthquake resistance), Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors. Actually, it's most of the rest of the world, except the US.

As the sister comment said - the houses are just strong enough not to fall over in a "normal", all-the-time earthquake. Our house sways a lot under typhoons and far-away earthquakes (far away = long wavelengths). It's only relatively recent that building codes have been updated to handle real earthquakes without falling over like a house of cards. Remember the Noto earthquake Januar 1, 2024? Large areas didn't have a single house still standing.

(Which is why we're now tearing down our old house and building a new, stronger one. Post-war Japan was more concerned with a) building a lot of houses, and b) keep lots of jobs, which meant, as far as houses were concerned, building use-and-throw-away houses. Then build another. And another. And don't talk to me about sound proofing.. it's non-existing. What with no insulation in walls.)

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#72

Post by Tor3 »

timr wrote: post #64
Liftyee wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed when I visited Japan that the crossing chimes quieten once the barriers have fully lowered. Just another example of Japanese attention to detail and human oriented design.

Not where I am standing right now! (I mean, maybe you’re right in some places, but it’s certainly not everywhere. Ironically, I happened to be standing next to a completely empty crossing, gates down, bonging away, while reading your comment.)

The nearest crossings where I live indeed stop the chimes when the barriers have been lowered. This doesn't actually make much of a difference really, because the train arrives only a few seconds after, and, because it's a local line, there are never more than three cars in the train so it passes very quickly.

Not that I'm bothered by the chimes at all. And grandson loves them.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#73

Post by Tor3 »

jabl wrote: post #59
Conan_Kudo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The reason the rail systems never got upgraded and Amtrak couldn't deploy high speed rail everywhere (despite it being a national priority in the 70s, 80s, and 90s) is that outside of the northeast corridor, Amtrak doesn't own the lines and couldn't get the owners to allow Amtrak to upgr…

> China also has nationalized rail systems. The major reason for the failure in the US is that the rail lines are not publicly owned. The article we're discussing explains that Japan has the best passenger rail system in the world, and which happens to be privatized, along with privately owned track. So which one is it? Go figure.

I believe the Japanese private rail companies also own the lines where their traffic is. This would explain a lot. There are other countries (including my native one) where the trains are run by one company and the lines are owned by another. This does.not.work. For what seems like obvious reasons. There's no economic gain for the owner of the infrastructure to spend money, quite the opposite in fact.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#74

Post by aposm »

Tor3 wrote: post #71
aposm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big part of it is also that (partly because of the necessity of building for earthquake resistance), Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors. Actually, it's most of the rest of the world, except the US.

As the sister comment said - the houses are just strong enough not to fall over in a "normal", all-the-time earthquake. Our house sways a lot under typhoons and far-away earthquakes (far away = long wavelengths). It's only relatively recent that building codes have been updated to handle real earthquakes without falling over like a house of cards. Remember the Noto earthquake Januar 1, 2024? Large areas didn't have a…

When I lived in Japan it was in a relatively recent (last 10 years) but not brand new apartment block - Maybe if you are talking about a rural area or an old postwar Showa era house, sure. But either way the sound proofing is worlds better than any new construction in the US.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#75

Post by DocTomoe »

I was hoping for some 'technical' secrets.

Like: you can actually change the lightbulbs for the headlights of the Series 0 train while it being underway - there is a service hatch that opens to a human-sized service area accessible from the driver's cabin which allows such repairs.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#76

Post by Tor3 »

aposm wrote: post #74
Tor3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the sister comment said - the houses are just strong enough not to fall over in a "normal", all-the-time earthquake. Our house sways a lot under typhoons and far-away earthquakes (far away = long wavelengths). It's only relatively recent that building codes have been updated to handle real earthquakes without falling over like a house of cards. Remember the Noto earthquake Januar 1, 2024? Large areas didn't have a…

When I lived in Japan it was in a relatively recent (last 10 years) but not brand new apartment block - Maybe if you are talking about a rural area or an old postwar Showa era house, sure. But either way the sound proofing is worlds better than any new construction in the US.

I'm in a 20 year old two-storey apartment right now (while we're building a new house), and the sound-proofing isn't non-existing but not as bad as some other apartments I'm aware of (where you can't make a sound without the neighbors start knocking on the walls/floors, and you're privy to thing you don't actually want to hear..) - but we can hear every footstep when the neighbors walk the stairs to their upper floor. The rooms which are more distant are fine, we don't actually hear them talking. Most of the time.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#77

Post by technothrasher »

aposm wrote: post #66
Shitty-kitty wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advatange they have is that all 4 of their major metropolitan areas are in a straight line across flat land. The enemy of high-speed is any diviations from flat and straigh. On he accela top speed can be maintained less then 40% of the trip.

All the major metro areas on the Acela corridor are also on a straight line, on significantly flatter land than Japan. Notice how the Acela never spends 10+ minute periods in long, deep tunnels under mountain ranges. The Acela primarily spends most of the trip going below 100 mph because it is operating on 100+ year old infrastructure that has only ever been upgraded piecemeal as it starts to fail.

It's always feels funny to me when taking the Acela between Boston and NYC that you go screaming along at 150mph... for a small portion of track in Rhode Island. The rest of the time you're going much slower. It's almost like, why even bother for that small section?

The Shinkansen was a very different experience when I took it.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#78

Post by DocTomoe »

l5870uoo9y wrote: post #5

It’s fascinating to read but I have a hard time imagining a public western railway provider could evolve into a train based mega corporation doing real estate and health services.

That's actually pretty common.

Deutsche Bahn does everything from real estate to infrastructure to truck companies (no longer in Europe, though, they had to sell that off) to car sharing to energy production to IT development to trading lumber, workforce rental and startup venture capital. The list changes every few days, so some they may no longer do, others they will now do. It's a megacorp.

Many of these have grown out of the original business model.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#79

Post by lioeters »

nephihaha wrote: post #44
radicalbyte wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is far larger and far less populated, it's an economic backwater and a cultural dead end. Yet despite that they have rail connecting their country together.

Once you get past the Urals, most of Russia's development is along an east west axis until you reach Baikal and the the far east. Also as a Marxist dictatorship for some years, there was little emphasis on independent travel (cars etc) To call Russia a "cultural dead end" is a bit much, considering all the great artists of various kinds that country has produced. In fact, you'll find that famous Russian novels like A…

Great point about trains being featured in Russian novels. I imagine trains are well-represented in Japanese literature too, as well as film and maybe poetry. That's an angle I'd enjoy investigating further for other cultures. Surely the U.S. is more of a "car culture", but even offhand I can think of, for example, the novel On the Road with train-hopping having a significant role.

Re: The secrets of the Shinkansen

#80

Post by tdeck »

aposm wrote: post #60
timr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The density of the NE is nothing like what you see elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, and Japan and China specifically. Yeah, I defy anyone who claims the US can't build trains "because of density" to fly to Tokyo, and actually take the Seibu Shinjuku line west from Shinjuku station. Look at those buildings built right next to the tracks , for many, many kilometers. People live in those -- if the windows open…

I think a big part of it is also that (partly because of the necessity of building for earthquake resistance), Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors. Actually, it's most of the rest of the world, except the US.

> Japanese construction is a lot more robust than American housing, and also tends to have extremely good soundproofing on windows and doors.

This must be a different Japan than the one I'm familiar with, where exterior walls are often uninsulated and only a few inches thick and single-pane windows are still the norm in a lot of housing. I wouldn't be surprised if soundproofing were better for railroad-adjacent buildings, but compared to American homes the soundproofing here is surprisingly poor.

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