Thursday 17 November 2016

View of Autumn Mt. Fuji from the Tokaido Shinkansen

EMU JR Central N700A series arrives at Atami Station on the Tokaido Shinkansen

Whenever I take the Tokaido Shinkansen, my greatest pleasure is to view Mt. Fuji in a train. If it is clear, we can see the beautiful conical edifice from a train window. I have already uploaded the snow-capped winter Fuji, so, I am going to show you the autumn Fuji without snow today. Mt. Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan. It is 3,776 m above sea level, and known as an active stratovolcano that last erupted from 1707 to 1708. Mt. Fuji is also a symbolic mountain, which has been appearing in numerous tales in this country.

Please look at the following picture. It was shot from the shinkansen train traveling near Shin-Fuji Station. The train speed at that time was 285 km per hour. It is not easy to shoot this volcano, since there are many objects, which obstruct photographing, on this side of Mt. Fuji. From my experiences, a total of the best shooting time is less than one minute.

In the meantime, the major fleet on the Tokaido Shinkansen is the EMU N700 series. Recently, the renovation of the N700 series has been completed. It is currently operated under the new name of the N700A series. The main difference between the N700 and the N700A series is their brake performance. The N700A series is equipped with the new disc brake to stop trains steadily without derailment as soon as an earthquake hits the track. The Tokaido Shinkansen is now in the final stage of its evolution. The next leading role will be SCMAGLEV.

View of Mt. Fuji (3,776m) from the Shinkansen window