JR West Unveils 700 Series "ONE PIECE" Shinkansen

[Express691]

Via the Tetsudo Shimbun in Japanese:

https://tetsudo-shimbun.com/article/topic/entry-4234.html

Operations of this special Shinkansen is scheduled to start 12 April 2025. 
San'Yo Shinkansen, Kodama (Hakata to Shin-Osaka)
There will be THREE designs.

Exact timetable TBD but here's the link to the ONE PIECE SHINKANSEN website (in English)
https://www.jr-onepiece-shinkansen.jp/en/

Edited April 9 by Express691

[cteno4]

Nice to see a new painted Shinkansen, but its pretty underwhelming in design. Why not go bold?

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

5 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Nice to see a new painted Shinkansen, but its pretty underwhelming in design. Why not go bold?

 

jeff

 

I agree but I wonder if they have maxed out on aerodynamic efficiency design.  Unless there's some kind of breakthrough in fluid dynamics.  🙂

[cteno4]

@Kingmeow Sorry I was referring to the new paint scheme here not the renovated 700. Nice blue but the art is pretty minimal. I hope for things bolder like the Mickey Mouse, eva, etc designs on painted trains!

 

Yes the 700 was about the point though in physical design you sort of saw the last look of a human in there on some of the curves. N700 you could see it all went for what ever the fluid dynamic modeling software saw as the best solution for flow, trying to reap every little bit of efficiency in air flow. Good for the planet, just not as good for the eye as the efficient curve may not be quite as aesthetically pleasing. Funny thing happened in the Prius design and at one point they dropped a few mpg in order to add some rays and fins and sharp lines as their market research said the super efficiency shape design had many saying it looked boring. But in that case the additions were a hack job of design and its slowly gone away.

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Well there will be 3 of these obe piece livery trains.  Maybe they are just trying to save a penny.

[cteno4]

Yeah kind of felt that way. Just paint it and put a couple of images on an open spot on each car and the little scallops along the bottom edge. Im just too spoiled from the heavy duty painted trains!

 

I like the blue they chose. Light but has some richness to it.

 

jeff

[Lessigen]

The links within have some renders of the other two liveries (pink and yellow) which is different from when I last looked at them. Quite a bit less bold than the blue one but I do appreciate the subdued-ness of it. It seems a lot more work went into styling the interior than the exterior for sure.

[cplchanb]

looks like im going to be saving up for at least the blue set when it comes out.