Traveling at the Speed of Time: Shinkansen

Shinkansen are bidrectional; the seats are turned, not the train.

In activating my Japan Rail Pass at Hakata Terminal in Fukuoka, the trilingual Japan Rail agent wrote out by hand the stations and times at which I would have to make transfers, from shinkansen to local trains to buses, in order to travel to Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture.  When I asked her for the train numbers she said, "Hmm...  I think times are better."  That should have been my first clue to what riding the shinkansen is all about.

Shinkansen is a clock

You used to hear an expression in America:  You can set your watch by it.  It may be that this was once even said about trains, but I have not heard it used in quite some time now.  Even when it was appropriate, the expression still implies a separation between some object and the clock that is marking its timeliness.  That separation does not exist on shinkansen.  As Frank Lloyd Wright noted, form and function are one, joined in a spiritual union--and that is the relationship shinkansen has to time.  There are thousands of vehicles running simultaneously, including shinkansen, local trains, and buses, moving millions of people all at once.  They all arrive on schedule, stand only briefly, then depart on schedule.  If a train were ever to do otherwise, it would send a shockwave across Japan: the incredibly complex switching of trains would be in turmoil; workers would not arrive at work on time; the entire country would lack harmony.  That errant train would be like a dust mote in fine clockworks: it would seize the movement, stopping the clock.

They manage to cram four seats in where we can only get six.

Shinkansen is a system

And like any clock, shinkansen is a system of components that all work together to create a singular movement; it is not simply a streamlined train that can slip through the air at 100 yards per second.  One of my greatest surprises was the lack of places to sit in the terminals.  Being used to the cavernous train stations of America, with people sprawled everywhere waiting for their train, I presumed there would be some equivalent here, but I could never find more than the small (yet air conditioned!) waiting rooms where mothers tend their children for a few minutes before boarding.  Then I realized: the waiting room is on the train.  Connections are synchronized, so they arrive and depart on schedule.  Terminals are relatively small, given the number of trains and people served, and getting from one platform to another is quick and easy.  Shinkansen is all electric, so there are no smelly, sooty diesel engines requiring ventilation within the terminal, and no fuel stops enroute.  All shinkansen tracks are either elevated or subterranean, so there are no dangerous railroad crossings, and all tracks are paired for bidirectional operation, thus no sitting on sidings.  Shinkansen is strictly for moving people; freight trains run on a separate system of surface track.

All train personnel bow every time they exit the car.

Shinkansen is a discipline

Everybody involved in shinkansen, including all train personnel and passengers, approach the system with discipline.  When a shinkansen train arrives at its final destination, a swarm of uniformed staff appear out of nowhere to thoroughly clean and service the train within just a matter of minutes.  When finished, they proudly line up alongside the immaculately clean train before being released from duty.  When the doors open--two per car except for head and tail, which are half-sized--all passengers board quickly and politely.  There is plenty of room for baggage, which is all carry-on, and passengers adhere to the number, size, and weight limits.  Passengers clean up after themselves before exiting the train, which is also smooth as the movement of fine clockworks.

There used to be an expression for whirlwind travel:  If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium, from the 1969 movie by the same name.  In Japan that translates as: The time is 11:42; therefore, this is Kumamoto.

Now I see just what that Japan Rail agent in Fukuoka meant.