But for all its practical importance as a connector of industrial centres and an arch logistician of human movement, the…
But for all its practical importance as a connector of industrial centres and an arch logistician of human movement, the shinkansen continues to play a role as an ideological encapsulator of Japan’s sense of what it is and what it should ideally strive to be. There has never been a fatal accident. Average annual lateness across the JR Central network is 1.6 minutes. When the natural world forces the shinkansen to stop, you know conditions are genuinely bad.
Leo Lewis, Sixty years of the shinkansen, FT Weekend, 28 September/29 September 2024