NEWSWORTHY
West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) will launch a Hello Kitty-themed bullet train on the Sanyo Shinkansen Line this summer, the railway operator says. A Kodama train featuring Sanrio Co.'s popular kitten character will consist of eight 500-series cars on the line that connects Osaka ...
Power outage halts Tokaido Shinkansen Line second time in five days
The Tokaido Shinkansen Line was suspended between Shizuoka and Hamamatsu stations on Sunday afternoon by a power failure in Shizuoka Prefecture. The outage occurred at around 4:10 p.m., forcing 191 trains to run behind schedule by nearly 2½ hours in some cases, affecting about 200,000 ...
Kawasaki Heavy Industries excessively ground down a steel component, likely causing the 16-cm crack discovered in December on the undercarriage of a shinkansen, JR West says
Sanyo Shinkansen Line halted in Okayama by boy walking on tracks
The Sanyo Shinkansen Line was brought to a halt near Okayama Station over the weekend after a boy was found walking along the tracks, West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) said. JR West said a station worker noticed that someone had entered the tracks at ...
Major contractor eyes plea bargain system as route to evade criminal prosecution
Major Japanese construction company Obayashi Corp., which is at the heart of a scandal over collusion in bidding for a maglev train link project, has decided to take a rare and pre-emptive step: Come clean about its role, and possibly evade criminal prosecution. Ahead of ...
Shinkansen halted in Nagoya after oil leak and cracked frame found
West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) reported what is the first recorded "serious incident," a designation in the transport ministry's accident-classification system introduced in 2001, on a shinkansen after a crack and oil leak were discovered underneath a running bullet train bound for Tokyo. "Serious ...
Prosecutors question execs at Obayashi and other top contractors over suspicious maglev deals
The fraud investigation targeting Obayashi Corp. is spreading to the nation’s other major general contractors as prosecutors scrutinize deals related to the ¥9 trillion maglev project.
JR firms offer cross-country train tour featuring a ride on the resurrected Cassiopeia
The seven Japan Railways Group companies have announced that they will offer a special across-Japan sightseeing tour plan using 24 select trains, including the Cassiopeia overnight limited express, whose regular operations ended in March last year. The joint project, announced on Tuesday, is among events ...
Malaysia on track to invite bids for high-speed rail project, likely by year-end
Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai on Thursday affirmed that plans are on track to call for a tender for a high-speed rail project linking Singapore with Kuala Lumpur by the end of this year. "We would like to get started hopefully by the end ...
Bullet train stops after tablet PC catches fire, singes table
A shinkansen made an emergency stop Sunday after a tablet computer apparently owned by a passenger caught fire while the train was en route to Tokyo Station, police and railway officials said. The incident aboard the Nozomi 234 super express took place at around 5:30 ...
Japan's bullet train tech to give 164-year-old Indian railway a jolt
Japan's government and its rail companies lobbied the U.S. for years to sell their bullet-train technology and found little success. Finally, there's an international buyer: India. The South Asian country is to become the first to import the iconic shinkansen technology after Japan's near-neighbor Taiwan, ...
Security cameras to be installed on Kyushu shinkansen in run-up to 2020 Olympics
Kyushu Railway Co. said Wednesday it will install security cameras in its shinkansen running in Kyushu beginning in November to enhance security ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The railway will introduce the cameras in passenger cabins and the decks of the 800 ...
