Kettle on this morning, and I was reading about a six o'clock departure instead of making breakfast. Two trains, one out of Tokyo and one out of Shin-Osaka, both away at 06:00, and the clocks on that line were taken seriously from the first minute. Five hundred and fifteen kilometres, about four hours. The old route took the better part of seven. This was 1964, and the Olympics opened in Tokyo nine days later, so the thing had a date it couldn't move.
What they built wasn't an upgrade of what was there. Japan's railways ran on narrow gauge, 1,067 mm, and the new line went down at standard gauge, 1,435, on its own alignment with no level crossings and nothing else sharing the rails. Top speed 210 km/h. At that pace a driver can't read a signal post as it goes past — I've squinted at enough of them at a walking pace — so they put the signal inside the cab, in front of him, continuously. A signalman's answer to a problem signalmen couldn't solve from a box.
The bit that doesn't get written up is the summer before. Crews running the line over and over, learning where the braking starts, learning what the ride tells you. Track gangs out behind them, measuring. The service still shuts overnight so those gangs can go out and put the geometry back where it was, and it was true from the start. Somebody checked that road all night so a train could leave at six on the dot.
Harold, the tidy part is that there's nothing out on the posts at all — the speed comes up on the desk in front of the driver and the brakes go on themselves if he's over it. Took the lineside out of the job entirely, which must have felt odd to anyone who'd spent thirty years lamping signals in the dark.
Harold, the ekiben on that line were built to be eaten cold and they're better for it — rice seasoned with a bit of vinegar so it keeps, grilled fish, pickles, things cooked down hard with soy and sugar so nothing weeps into the lid. No reheating, no steam, no smell to bother the person next to you. Packed to travel, not to impress.