Evolving nose contours of the Shinkansen

[jjb1970]

I posted this in the early risers thread but it may be of interest here. This week I bought a Kato N700S train in N gauge, the N700S is the current flagship train of the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen services of JR Central and JR West. It's a development of the N700 which replaced the original 700 Series trains with their characteristic duckbill nose. The N700 and N700S had a significantly redesigned nose, the Shinkansen designers have had to put a huge amount of effort into aerodynamics to mitigate the piston effect as trains enter tunnels. Clearances are quite tight and line speeds are higher than when built. I thought it an opportunity to compare the JR West/Central design language of the N700S with its equivalent train of JR East, the E5 Hayabusa. The E5 has a very pronounced nose and half the lead/trailing vehicles are lost to the aerodynamic nose. I'm not sure I'd call it a good looking train but the E5 is striking and there is something impressive about the design in person, it looks very sleek and fast. And then my favourite of the shinkansen trains, the JR West 500 Series. Despite being 25 years old the 500 Series remains an incredibly sleek, futuristic design.

 

Kato N700S first.

 

[jjb1970]

The E5 Hayabusa, also by Kato, a very...ahem..striking design. I think this is one of those trains that needs to be seen in the metal to be appreciated.

 

[jjb1970]

And finally, the JR West 500 Series, this time by Tomix, I love these trains.

 

 

[AY Mod]

Faces that only mothers could love. ;)

 

I assume, in N particularly, that you need a re-railer to get the things on the track?

[Rich_F]

Personally I always thought the 500 series was the best looking Shinkansen that was made. When you think of bullet train, that is literally what I would imagine a train to look like!

Edited November 4, 2022 by Weeny Works

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

Faces that only mothers could love. ;)

 

I assume, in N particularly, that you need a re-railer to get the things on the track?

 

A re-railer is definitely helpful, the bogies are faired in and it's very fiddly without one. The nose cone on the E5 model comes off and there is a dummy scharfenberg coupler behind it, it's a feature that became common on Japanese models in the 90's which I've never quite made my mind up about. It's undeniably neat and rather impressive, but even in N gauge you need a big layout to couple up a pair of even the JR East shorter (6 - 10 car) sets and it's the sort of feature that if it breaks is a bit of a pain. I like it but equally I wouldn't really object if they dropped it.

Edited November 4, 2022 by jjb1970

[jjb1970]

1 hour ago, Weeny Works said:

Personally I always thought the 500 series was the best looking Shinkansen that was made. When you think of bullet train, that is literally what I would imagine a train to look like!

 

Indeed, considering it is a mid-90's design it still looks remarkably futuristic, more like an airliner than a train. My other favourite was the 100 Series and very similar 200-2000 Series, which were an evolutionary update of the original 0 Series styling, beautiful trains.

[jjb1970]

I need to get my slides scanned as all the picutures I ever made any effort with were done on my SLR with slide film, but a couple of snaps of the iconic 0 Series and the 300 Series which was the first of the Shinkansen trains to deviate from the original design language.

 

[Dominion]

I rode on one in 1988. Very impressive. An O series I think, at least that is the shape I think I recognize but it’s a long time ago now. Can anyone recommend a model in HO scale ? I don’t know anything about the relative merits of different Japanese model railway brands. 
Thanks for any input, Tom

[PaulRhB]

4 hours ago, Dominion said:

I rode on one in 1988. Very impressive. An O series I think, at least that is the shape I think I recognize but it’s a long time ago now. Can anyone recommend a model in HO scale ? I don’t know anything about the relative merits of different Japanese model railway brands. 
Thanks for any input, Tom

There’s the rather crude Lima set from the 80’s, the shape is ok but it’s very plasticky. 
 

The Zoukei Mura HO Gauge Shinkansen 0 Series is available here and not unreasonably priced, comparable to Bachmann units. 
https://www.hattons.co.uk/directory/versiondetails/article?id=659

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by PaulRhB

[jjb1970]

Yes, if you want an HO model of the Series 0 then the Zoukei Mura model is the one to get, it's a superb model and realistically priced. The alternatives would be high end brass from companies like KTM, beautiful but very (very) expensive. Kato made a very nice HO model of the E5 which is very reasonably priced and relatively easy to find. Bachmann made a nice HO model of the Series 500 a few years ago, I think it was a cooperation with Tenshodo, it was expensive and is now quite hard to find, however if you see one at a price that works it was nicely done and the Series 500 is a wonderful looking train.

HO is a niche scale in Japan, and it can get quite complicated as most of the models are not actually HO. Models of non-shinkansen trains are 1/80 scale, however shinkansen trains tend to be HO. In terms of where HO sits in Japan it is essentially the equivalent of O gauge in the British market, a bigger and more expensive alternative to the main scale, which in Japan is N. Japanese HO has been growing, Tomix now have quite a large range of extremely well done HO models and Kato makes some HO. Whereas in N the two manufacturers are equivalent, in HO Tomix models are positioned higher up than Kato and tend to be more expensive.

[Dominion]

Dear Paul and IIB, many thanks for your replies. I had seen the Zoukei Mura at Hattons but was finding it hard to judge the detail and quality from their photos. You comments are much appreciated. Tom

(I am in Canada but Hattons has a great service to here) 

[chris p bacon]

Packed away at present is a pair KTM O series leading/trailing cars purchased from the Hamaya in Nagasaki in 1976. I can't remember what they cost, but it blew whatever pocket money I had!

Unfortunately no centre cars as I would have purchased on the next trip, but that was our third and final time in Japan. I've always presumed them to be HO.

[jjb1970]

I remember in the 90's people thought I was a complete crackpot for deliberately using kodama services to get more Series 0 goodness. The Tokaido and Sanyo services were split into 3 tiers:

 

Nozomi, premium express stop services operated by the Series 300. Some super premium services were called Shin Nozomi operated by the Series 500 from the mid-90's

Hikari, limited stop fast services operated by Series 100 and with Series 300 also appearing later

Kodama, all stop services, operated by Series 0 and with Series 100 steadily pushing the 0 sets out.

 

It was obvious that the Series 0 was in its final sunset and I wanted to get as much time on them as I could. Now the Series 100 and 300 are all long gone and the survivors of 500 and 700 are downgraded to Kodama services as the faster services are N700 and N700S.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

Those nose contours look more SNCF than Shinkasen ....

 

https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/cartoon_by_eko_on_general_de_gaulle_s_european_policy_7_september_1960-en-7c09db0f-45cb-44ac-92f8-3796752be662.html

[Farang]

This is Taiwan in 2014.

[jjb1970]

7 hours ago, Farang said:

This is Taiwan in 2014.

 

Kato make an excellent model of the 700T train in N, the prototype is a derivative of the Series 700 Shinkansen. The model is an accurate one and replicates the very different nose of the 700T. You can still find the model online, it's sold in two booksets to make a full-length train.

[jjb1970]

Another Shinkansen design, this is one of my favourites (I must apologise for gushing, I seem to have a lot of favourite Shinkansen designs.....), the JR East E4 MAX. The E4 was one of the first designs to veer of the rails on front end design, when new they were rather odd looking but in the metal there was something almost beautifully organic about the nose contours.

The E4 was a double deck train, JR East jumped into double deck trains with the E1 MAX (multiple amenity express) and E4 MAX designs, and JR Central/JR West had double deck coaches in the lovely looking Series 100 Grand Hikari sets. Nowadays double deck is out of favour for shinkansen trains, both the E1 and E4 have been retired. This Kato model has been around for a long time but is still a lovely model, it is another one with a removeable nose cone and dummy Scharfenberg coupler to run sets in mult.

 

[jjb1970]

Another instalment of these occasional forays into the wonderful world of Japanese high speed trains. This is the Series 800, as modelled by Kato in N. The 800 Series trains were built for the Kyushu Shinkansen, which is an extension of the Sanyo Shinkansen from the main island of Honshu to Kyushu. The trains run as 6 car sets so this is a complete train. To me the nose contours are the most European of all the Shinkansen train. High speed train industrial design has evolved very differently to European trains, especially the nose contours although the trains also tend to have a much squarer profile too (as naval architects would say, they have a high block coefficient). Although the 800 Series looks very Japanese once you go aft of the nose with its small individual windows and very square profile the nose looks much more like a European than a Japanese design.

Something else which this might illustrate is that Japanese N gauge producers implement something like 'design clever'. Models are superbly done in terms of shape and some elements of detail are outstanding but they also very obviously economise in some areas. They don't bother with vehicle end details as the philosophy is the trains run as fixed sets and so nobody will ever see a lot of fancy detail on the vehicle ends. Ditto underframe details, admittedly that's not so relevant to Shinkansen as they are faired in but even on regular trains underframe details which are visible when on a layout are replicated, stuff you will only see if holding the model upside down tends to be omitted or represented in very basic form. What isn't economised is the mechanism, both Kato and Tomix provide superb mechanisms which give very quiet, smooth and powerful running qualities. I have had this a while, but looking on Amazon.sg the current price is about S$120, which is £74. A combination of 'design clever' putting detail where it is noticeable and not where it will not be seen along with immense production numbers (minimum run for Kato is apparently 10,000 units, and the tooling can be re-used many times) make prices very attractive.

 

[jjb1970]

Perhaps my favourite, the Series 300. This was the first of the Shinkansen to deviate from the classic nose style, when introduced in the early 90's the beavertail nose was quite controversial. These were used on the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen. The JR-Central Tokaido Shinkansen is the principal rail route of Japan, connecting Tokyo with Yokohama, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka. At Osaka the line continues on to Hakata but becomes the JR-West Sanyo Shinkansen (which in turn connects with the Kyushu Shinkansen). Trains operate through services along both the Tokaido and Sanyo lines and JR-Central and JR-West offer a joint service (though ownership of the trains sits with each company and not as a joint fleet. When introduced the Series 300 operated premium 'Nozomi' express services, before cascading to 'Hikari' semi-fast services and ended their lives on the all-stop Kodama service.

This is my newest addition, it took Kato many years to make a 300 Series but when it arrived this year it was worth the wait. The old Tomix model is still excellent but this Kato model is superb. I've tried to show the design cleverness, the couplings use a European style kinematic mechanism for close coupling. This is a full length 16 car set, though where I'll ever run it as a 16 car set I have no idea.

 

[Legend]

500 is my favourite . Did Tokyo- Hiroshima on it back in 2005.

[jjb1970]

The Series 500 is a wonderful looking train, I always think it looks as much like an aeroplane as a train, even after all these years (it's a 1990's design) I don't think any other train looks as futuristic.

If you want a model the Tomix model in N gauge is still a splendid model (pics earlier in the thread), I just looked on Amazon.sg and it is S$160 for the 8 car set with free shipping (£98), even if you add VAT and shipping to UK that's still quite a bargain in my view.