Locals Cheer as Test Runs Begin on Bullet Train Along Kyushu’s Nagasaki Route
Test runs of a bullet train on the Kyushu Shinkansen Line’s Nagasaki route, slated to open on Sept. 23, began in southwestern Japan’s Nagasaki Prefecture on May 10 and in neighboring Saga Prefecture the following day.
At every station where the N700S series bullet train — nicknamed “Kamome,” meaning seagull — made a stop for the first time on the Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen Line, crowds of local residents cheered its arrival.
According to the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, rail tracks and equipment such as traffic signals are checked during trial runs. During testing, the train speeds up gradually from 30 kilometers per hour to 260 kph and makes one to three round trips a day between Takeoonsen Station in the city of Takeo, Saga Prefecture, and Nagasaki Station in the city of Nagasaki. The agency said it plans to conduct the trials for a total of about 15 days up to June 16.
On May 10, the train departed Shin-Omura Station in the Nagasaki Prefecture city of Omura and traveled to Nagasaki Station and back.
Some 250 people greeted the train at Nagasaki Station, waving flags with the message: “Welcome, Kamome.” Sota Torigoe, a 5-year-old boy who attends a kindergarten in Nagasaki, said, “I thought it was like today’s shinkansen.”
Of the 143-kilometer route, which connects Hakata Station in the city of Fukuoka and Nagasaki Station, a standard gauge for the Sanyo Shinkansen and other bullet train lines was adopted for the 66-km section between Takeoonsen and Nagasaki stations.
Kamome operator Kyushu Railway Co. had initially planned to introduce gauge-changing trains for the Nagasaki route but abandoned the plan, and the track gauge for the section between Shin-Tosu and Takeoonsen stations in Saga Prefecture — whose construction hasn’t started — is yet to be determined. Therefore, travelers will need to transfer at Takeoonsen Station between the new shinkansen trains and conventional limited express trains when operations on the route start in September.
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