shinkansen 500 series

[willele]

Hello to evertybody!! A few days ago this article appeared .. I wanted to know what you think! Thank you to all!

 

https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASL574RZRL57PLFA00T.html

[bill937ca]

Only available to paid subscribers.

[willele]

but from the first words we understand that JR Tokai  was not happy there was this train!!

[cteno4]

Sorry it’s showing up as an invalid link here

 

jeff

[railsquid]

Works for me.

 

Basic tenor of the visible part of the article is that despite being the fastest Shinkansen ever (at the time), the 500 series lasted the shortest time of any series on the Tokaido Shinkansen.

 

I think it's fairly well-known that it was not all that practical due to the rounded body shape restricting seating capacity, and JR Tokai never really liked it as it was a JR West design.

[chadbag]

I also heard that while it was the fastest, that was only on straight track.   It had to slow down more than other Shinkansen on curved track.

 

ETA:  FWIW the link comes up for me

Edited May 19, 2018 by chadbag

[bill937ca]

At the time it was removed from the Tokaido Shinkansen, it was pointed out that if a Series 500 had to replace another type of Shinkansen passengers with reserved seats lost their seats due the smaller seating capacity of the Series 500 in the nose and seats by the rounded sides were more cramped reducing passenger comfort.  There were only 9 of these trains as they cost so much to build that production moved to newer, more practical designs very early.

[Sacto1985]

The high production cost of the 500 Series was why JR Central ordered the 700 Series in the late 1990's, which was almost as fast as the 500 Series but with way more passenger comfort. 

[willele]

For me are just JR tokai excuses!! If you would have produced 50 trains instead of 9 would have cost a lot less!!

[cteno4]

Not excuses, it just was not financially practical for a number of the above reasons. Building 50 would not have significantly reduced costs and the other issues would not go away. It was a cramped train to ride I’ve ridden it and tiny overhead space. Reduced seating will always make it more expensive to run. 700 tackled all these issues quickly and better nose noise reductions.

 

jeff

[willele]

Point of wiew!!

[Socimi]

2 hours ago, willele said:

Point of wiew!!

 

facts.