- Start
- Oct 1, 196490% CONFIDENCEfrom the source
Japan Opens the Tokaido Shinkansen Bullet Train
- The Tokaido Shinkansen opened on 1 October 1964, shortly before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, as the first railway built for regular operation above 200 km/h[2][3]
- The Series 0 trains ran at 210 km/h design speed, initially 200 km/h; Hikari took four hours and Kodama five, versus 6 h 30 by conventional express[2][3]
- Construction began 20 April 1959; the World Bank lent US$80 million in 1961[3]
- The line is 515.4 km with 17 stations, run by JR Central since 1987; 168 million passengers in fiscal 2024[3]
References 387% CONFIDENCE
The first entry is always the pin's source. Overall confidence is a weighted average of how firmly each reference supports the start and end times used above; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newest.
- [1]90%youtube.com/watch?v=oqp0kWrU4moyoutube.com· Posted Sep 15, 2026· Starts Oct 1, 1964 ✓· 33% of score
Wikipedia's[3] Tokaido Shinkansen and Shinkansen articles, along with Japan House London's[2] retrospective, state the line opened on October 1, 1964, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
- [2]80%Shinkansen and the Legacy of Tokyo 1964 – Japan House Londonjapanhouselondon.uk· Added Sep 15, 2026· 33% of score
Confirms the Shinkansen launched just before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as a symbol of Japan’s modernization.[1]
- [3]90%Tokaido Shinkansen - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org· Added Sep 15, 2026· 33% of score
States the Tokaido Shinkansen entered service on October 1, 1964, as the world’s first high-speed rail line.[1]
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East Japan Railway Company
Mitsubishi Estate