22 July, 2023

50 years on: a comparison (part 4)...Towards the Northeast

The article uploaded last month showed that Tokaido Shinkansen became faster and more frequent in the last 50 years. It is not hard to imagine how have trips between Tokyo and Nagoya, Osaka and Okayama become easier.

Then, how about travelling from Tokyo to Tohoku region and vice versa? Today, there is Tohoku Shinkansen, the fastest high-speed rail in Japan whose trains can run at a speed of 320 km/h (200 mph), but it was still under construction in 1973. Thus, train journeys relied on Tohoku Main Line and other relevant lines. This article looks into six prefectural capitals in the region, namely: Fukushima, Sendai, Morioka, Yamagata, Akita and Aomori. Note that all tables below show regular services only.

The trains in 1973 started from or terminated at Ueno station, which was about 10 minutes from Tokyo station. The official timetable recommended all passengers arriving at Tokyo and taking another train from Ueno to take a 30-minute time allowance.


Fukushima, Sendai and Morioka


Yamagata


Akita


Aomori


Personal Views

Not to mention the journey duration, it is intriguing that there were fewer services in 1973 despite railway was more heavily used than it is today. In other words, Shinkansen must have contributed to more demands. Even with extensive motorway networks and modern airports across the country that we see today, high-speed rails clearly play an important role.

However, night trains do not exist today because there are cheap bus services and even decent business hotels everywhere. As the time passed, night trains became an obsolete option and therefore they were mostly discontinued by the 2000s.


Types of Rolling Stock (2023 and 1973)

Finally, types of rolling stock for abovementioned services were as follows.

2023

1973

*There were also locomotives and coaching stock that I have never seen (as they were withdrawn before the privatisation of JNR).

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