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Hiroshima and the first ride on the Shinkansen - 2

Our trip to Hiroshima afforded me my first time to ride Japan's bullet trains, the Shinkansen.  I had heard about Japan's fast trains when my parents returned from their first visit in 1969. I was only six years old and the stories were fantastic. Those first bullet trains looked like they had come out of the science fiction movies. They still do today. 

More than 50 years later, the trains are running on an expanded network, at higher speeds. The top speed for bullet trains in the 1960s was 210 kilometers/hour (130 mph). Today, top speeds on the Tokhuko line, which stretches north from Tokyo, are 320 km/hr (199 mph). The top speed on the Tokaido line is 285 km/hr (177 mph). Each train set on the Tokaido line is 16-cars long with a capacity of 1,300 passengers. 

The original line, the Tokaido, connected Tokyo and Osaka, via Kyoto, Nagoya, and Yokohama. Today Shinkansen service stretches the entire length of Honshu, Japan's largest island. The service has been extended to Kyushu (an island immediately southwest of Honshu) and Hokkaido (the large island north of Honshu) via tunnels. 

The journey to Hiroshima from Kyoto traversed the Tokaido and San'yo routes. We purchased reserved seats on the Nozomi, the most limited service train. Our guide helped us buy the tickets the day that we arrived. 

It is possible to put Shinkansen tickets on an IC card or even an IC card on your cell phone. We didn't do that due complexity. So, we got old fashioned hard-copy tickets. Reserved-seat tickets tell you the train time, the car number and seat numbers. 

Ticket receipts for our round-trip to Hiroshima 

Tickets from the Kintetsu railway (connecting Kyoto and Nara) showing car and seat. The tickets aren't big. And I misplaced mine. The Shinkansen tickets are similar. 

In addition to the tickets you get your receipt. I saved mine. (In Japan, they give you a receipt for every thing you buy. There's not paperless.) I've been dumping some of my railroadiana, but this stuff is a keeper. 

The tickets are magnetized. You insert them in an entry gate, just like for all the other train systems in Japan.

One of the entrances to the Kyoto Station Shinkansen tracks. You can see the entry gates at the bottom of the picture. 

One of the nice things about Japan's train system is that train signs and announcements are in English, too.



The train status board switches over every few seconds. We were scheduled to take Nozomi 13 @10:02. We hung out in the waiting area until 10 minutes before train time. 

We got up to the platform in time to see the 9:52 Nozomin pull in. 





Boarding the Shinkansen. Don't be late.

The ride to Hiroshima was 1 hour and 36 minutes. And let me tell you about Japanese trains -- they run on time. If the train is supposed to leave at 10:02 am. It does. Several times, I looked at the clock on my cell phone, just as train time approached. When the minute clicked over, the train started. They measure delays on the Japanese railway system in seconds. 

I was snapping all kinds of photos from the train window (that's for another post) but wanted to share a few here:

Thought I would try to take a picture of us passing another Shinkansen. I managed to get two shots. I'm impressed that the camera on my iPhone caught this image. The combined speed of these trains is close to 600 k/hr. 


The one agricultural commodity not imported by Japan is rice. Rice fields festoon the Japanese countryside in rural as well as urban areas. 

We reached Hiroshima and took a bathroom break before setting off for our first stop at the Hiroshima Castle. I had to grab a picture of the display panel outside of the bathroom.


At the Hiroshima train station, this panel shows the status of all the toilets in the adjacent bathroom. If you look closely you can see which ones are either out of service or in use. This would be very helpful in an emergency. No status reports on the urinals in the Men's room, however. :(



To get to the castle we took a tram from the train station. Several tram lines terminate at the Hiroshima train station. Here are a few of them: 

This is the tram we rode to the Hiroshima Castle. 


Another tram at the Hiroshima train station. 

I grabbed a picture of a passing Hiroshima Fire Department unit on the way.

A Hiroshima Fire Department unit. 

It was a spectacular day and very hot. The castle was not far from the Peace Memorial Park.

The concrete foundation of one of the buildings obliterated by the atomic blast survived. 
More foundations and ruins from the atomic bomb.


The rebuilt Hiroshima Castle. There's a museum inside.

The castle has been rebuilt, but many of the surrounding buildings have not. Those structures were wiped out in the blast. 

In August 1945, the castle was being used by the Japanese army as a base. 

After we saw the castle, we went to the Peace Memorial Park. You can read about that visit in Part 1. 

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