We celebrate the 150th anniversary of Japanese railways today. The first railway was inaugurated on October 14th in 1872 between Shimbashi and Yokohama stations. It was only five years after the new Meiji Government was established, and 18 years after the Tokugawa Shogunate opened a port to the U.S. stopping their long isolation policy.
The Old Shimbashi Station is an architecture reproducing the former Shimbashi station building and the former platform in the same place as it was. The building is currently used as the Railway History Exhibition Hall. It's a free museum which anyone can visit casually. The old platform is also interesting. It's about a 30-meter-long (originally 150-meter-long) platform with a distance post indicating "zero", because the Japanese railway started at Shimbashi station at that time. When the railway was opened, almost all the vehicles, for example the Class 150 steam locomotive (SL), were introduced from the United Kingdom. We can still observe them in the Railway Museum in Saitama City. The Class 150 SL was designated as an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese Government in 1997.
What's the plan of the Japanese railways toward the next 150 years? The next step will be the opening of a magnetic levitation railway (SCMAGLEV) called Chuo Linear Shinkansen, which is planned to be inaugurated in 2027. The super express train with a maximum speed of 500 kilometers per hour (311 MPH) will be operated to connect Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes.
