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New to the group and glad to find other fans of the bullet trains. I rode the Shinkansen for the frist time last month (June 2018) and loved it. It was amazing how smooth but powerful the acceleration was and the organization for passengers to get on and off to minimize the time in the station. Love these trains and made a short video of the journey. Can't wait to to go back to back to ride again. I've rode similar trains in Europe but have to say Japan has the best! See Youtube link for a video summary of the ride.

Still image slideshow of Kyoto Station and environs, about 50 years ago. This is the previous station building. I've read there was some opposition to the current design, that it doesn't really fit in with the city. I never really made up my mind about it. I do like this older building, looks like it had great JNR atmosphere :). Reminds me of a small airport for some reason, I guess it's that tower. Uploaded by KoichiImai. Kyoto Station, San'in Line platform area and Tambaguchi Station, April 25th and 26th ,1971, apparently the last day of regular steam operations. YT uploader lodgershinmeishrine has a lot of great footage which has been posted here many times before. It's really interesting to see this area before the track was elevated, featured toward the end of the video.

Unique photos of Japan's Tokyo to Kyoto line in the very early 1900s, published in Dec. 2013 by the Imperial Household Agency. One set shows the royal train at the time of Emperor Taisho's coronation in 1915. He used it to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto for the ceremony. The carriage known as the Kashikodokoro Jogyosha was designed specially "to transport the Yata-no-Kagami [sacred mirror], the most sacred of the three divine symbols of the Japanese imperial throne. The images show that the car came with a bamboo blind and base to transport the mirror," reported the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. "The Kashikodokoro Jogyosha car was run only one more time: when the enthronement ceremony for Emperor Showa was held in 1928, also at the Kyoto Imperial Palace," it added. The photos: Imperial train in 1915 (click the blue buttons to leaf through the album) Kyoto station in 1917 (see photographs 48-52) Images of the then bucolic Sanyo line, including sleeping cars (undated, but the railway opened in 1900) (see photographs 22-27)