2005

British engineers laid Japan’s first railway tracks, a 27km (17-mile) stretch between Yokohama and Tokyo that opened in 1872, but as an engine of ruthless efficiency, the veins and arteries of a ceaseless urban organism, Japan must be considered the inventor of the modern railway system.

Japanese eat and drink on trains (which have spawned the “ekiben” or “station packed lunch”, dispensed from platform kiosks and filled with local specialities). Suicides on railtracks are common.

Japanese railways may lack the grimy romance of those in India or Latin America, but for convenience they are unmatched. Put aside images of station employees shoving commuters on to packed subways filled with groping salarymen — such scenes are to be found only on the busiest lines at the height of the rush hour: mostly trains are comfortable, roomy and above all safe, which makes the crash in the Osaka commuter belt all the more shocking.

Hotels Osaka
ANA Gate Tower Osaka **** The ANA Gate Tower is located in the suburb of Izumisano and is sited very close to the city of Osaka. The hotel looks out over picturesque Nakanoshima on the winding Dojima River and provides easy access to Osaka's business and entertainment centres. The hotel offers its guests a tantalising variety of food and entertainment in its numerous restaurants and bars.

In 2001, 127 million Japanese travelled a total of 385 billion km by train, an average of 3,000km for every man, woman and child. Only China and India, with populations eight and ten times as big, exceeded that, with 477 billion km and 493 billion km respectively.

Yet the most remarkable thing about the Japanese railway experience is efficiency; 95 per cent of the famous shin-kansen, or bullet trains, arrived on time in 2001; those that did not were late by an average of 24 seconds. In Britain, 78 per cent of trains arrived “on time” — which means that they were less than ten minutes late.

The system had to be rebuilt after the Second World War. Japanese freight is mostly carried by sea, relieving the tracks of goods trains. Above all, Japanese trains have been a symbol of progress and a source of pride. With their crisp uniforms, heraldic cap badges and ceremonial white gloves, Japanese train drivers look like army officers. It is all the more humiliating when one lets the side down by running late.

Two events heralded Japan’s postwar re-emergence — the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the start of bullet train services ten days before the opening of the Games. No other train serves as such a national symbol.

The quest for locomotive perfection continues. The train of the future, which will make the most sophisticated bullet train look like a Tonka toy, is the Maglev, a train that literally floats on an invisible magnetic field and is already achieving test speeds of 500km/h. The shinkansen cut the journey from Tokyo to Osaka from six hours to 2½. The Maglev will cut it to an hour.