Ceremonies were held Friday marking 40 years since the Tokaido Shinkansen Line opened, pioneering the bullet train service linking Tokyo and Osaka just ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Events were held in the morning at Tokyo Station and Shin-Osaka Station, the end points of the 553-km line that is an enduring symbol of Japan's postwar high economic growth and state-of-the-art technology.
Since opening on Oct. 1, 1964, as the first bullet train line, Tokaido Shinkansen trains have carried 4.16 billion passengers and traveled 1.5 billion km -- enough to circle the globe 38,000 times. They currently carry about 360,000 passengers a day.