Japan's high-speed Shinkansen bullet train turns 50

It was, retired Japanese railway engineer Fumihiro Araki recalls, "like flying in the sky".

Zipping cross-country in a super-high-speed train has become commonplace in many countries these days, but it was unheard of when Japan launched its bullet train between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka 50 years ago yesterday.

The Shinkansen, as it is called in Japan, gave a boost to train travel in Europe and Asia at a time when the rise of the car and the passenger plane threatened to eclipse it. It was also a symbol of pride for Japan, less than two decades after the end of the second world war and a precursor of the economic "miracle" to come.

The October 1, 1964, inauguration ceremony was re-enacted at Tokyo Station yesterday at 6am, complete with ribbon cutting. The first bullet train, with its bulbous round nose, travelled from Tokyo to Osaka in four hours, shaving 2½ hours off the 513km journey. The latest model, with a space-age-like elongated nose, takes just two hours and 25 minutes.

Araki, now 73, drove the Shinkansen briefly in the summer of 1967 as part of his training as a railway operations engineer. Last week he slipped back in time as he sat in the driver's seat of one of the early bullet trains at a railway museum outside Tokyo. He pulled a lever on the control panel, looking straight ahead as he was trained, though all he could see were other museum exhibits.

"It was like flying in the sky, it was that kind of feeling," said Araki, the acting director of the museum. "On a clear day, you could see Mount Fuji, and riding atop the railway bridge at Hamanako lake was very pleasant. It felt like you were sailing above the sea."

Japan started building a high-speed line during the second world war, but construction was halted in 1943 as funds ran out. The idea was revived in the 1950s, but many questioned the wisdom of such a costly project, particularly with the expansion of air travel and highways.