1970: Dawn of the Super Trains: Son of Iron Horse

[kuro68000]

 

 

This BBC documentary is mostly about the UK's efforts to develop high speed rail, but there is quite a bit of coverage of the Shinkansen and how it works.

 

As well as some interesting details of operation and some nice footage, one thing I noticed is the sound that the early trains made. It's different to the modern ones, louder and whistling.

 

Of course our Advanced Passenger Train (APT) failed. It could lean into corners, but ultimately was delayed and then cancelled. In 1970 we had just developed Concorde with the French, and their high speed rail did succeed. In the documentary they seen certain that we will be zipping up and down the country. The assumption is we will surpass the Japanese since we can learn from their efforts and build on them, but of course it didn't work out like that.

 

It's remarkable how much smaller Japan seems because of their high speed rail and extensive conventional network. Tokyo to Osaka is similar to London to Edinburgh, but the latter seems much further.

Edited yesterday at 09:47 AM by kuro68000