{"id":243,"date":"2010-03-02T16:58:50","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T07:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seanmisen.com\/?p=243"},"modified":"2010-03-02T16:58:50","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T07:58:50","slug":"goodbye-to-the-500-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/japan\/goodbye-to-the-500-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye to the 500-Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was sad news for Japanese railfans the other day.\u00a0 On Sunday the much loved pointy nose 500-series bullet trains were retired from their “Nozomi<\/em>” superexpress service to be replaced by newer, faster N700-series trains.<\/p>\n

\"500kei\"<\/p>\n

500 series bullet train.<\/strong><\/em> (Image: Wikimedia commons<\/a> creative commons license)<\/em><\/p>\n

The 500-series were adored by many for their futuristic, sleek design, even winning several prestigious design awards.\u00a0 They were the first passenger trains in the world to operate at 300 kph (186 mph) when they went into service in 1997.\u00a0 However, they were very expensive to build, and only nine sets were made.\u00a0 A few years ago the faster N700 series trains began to come into service.\u00a0 They operate at the same top speed of 300 kph but are able to maintain higher cornering speeds thanks to tilt-technology, shaving five minutes off the trip from Tokyo to Osaka.<\/p>\n

Don’t worry, though.\u00a0 Japan Railways aren’t scrapping these beautiful machines.\u00a0 They will go into slower “Kodama<\/em>” service between Shin-Osaka and Hakata, stopping at all stations instead of making the Tokyo-Shin-Osaka run in one blazing nonstop.<\/p>\n

What I find most fascinating about the retirement of these trains is the intensity of the fan interest surrounding it.\u00a0 Railfans exist everywhere, but the nostalgic fever exhibited for this train was amazing.\u00a0\u00a0 Over 1,500 fans showed up to send off the last departing 500-series Nozomi service from Tokyo station yesterday, as this Mainichi Daily News article shows<\/a>.\u00a0 Can you imagined thousands of people crowding an Amtrak station to bid farewell to the Acela?\u00a0 I can’t.\u00a0 The Japanese simply love their trains, and for good reason.<\/p>\n

Lastly, take a look at some great YouTube video of this cool train in action.\u00a0 It’s beautiful!
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There was sad news for Japanese railfans the other day.\u00a0 On Sunday the much loved pointy nose 500-series bullet trains were retired from their “Nozomi” superexpress service to be replaced by newer, faster N700-series trains. 500 series bullet train. (Image: Wikimedia commons creative commons license) The 500-series were adored by many for their futuristic, sleek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","category-trains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanholland.net\/seanmisen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}