OSAKA (Kyodo) Central Japan Railway Co. plans to designate Tokyo's Shinagawa Station as the starting point for a new maglev bullet-train line that it aims to launch in 2027 between Tokyo and Nagoya, industry sources said Sunday.
As part of a plan to fully open the maglev shinkansen line between Tokyo and Osaka in 2045, Shinagawa was chosen over Tokyo Station in light of access to Tokyo's Haneda airport and the lack of space for a large new station facility at Tokyo Station, which is already the hub of many JR and subway lines, the sources said.
The station for the maglev service will be built underground, with the company considering plans that include digging a 1 km-long tunnel dozens of meters below ground, they said.
With construction costs of around ¥5.1 trillion, the new line will enable passengers to travel between Tokyo and Nagoya in about 40 minutes, significantly faster than the roughly 100 minutes it currently takes by shinkansen bullet train.
The company is also considering redesigning Nagoya Station to enable passengers to get to the shinkansen platform in about 10 minutes if the maglev service is suspended, and could apply the same idea to Shinagawa Station.
JR Tokai said in April it was delaying the launch of the Tokyo-Nagoya line by two years from the initial target of 2025 due to a decline in revenues from its mainstay Tokaido Shinkansen services.