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Don't know if you have been to East Asia before, but if you definition on "international" is in reference to the various differences between European countries, which seemed to be the case with several of the Europeans I worked with you will be in for some shocks. Firstly, due to the combination of simple population density and the mentality of the people, their definition of personal space is approximately zero. That really not strike us in Japan, but by that time we went we had spent most of the previous 16 years in Taiwan, so our definition of normal people density had adjusted. Therefore, having heard about the super crowdedness of the Tokyo subway, when we actually saw and rode it, we were looking at each other saying, what's the big deal? Nothing that out of the ordinary here. Personal contact between two men in an office setting when discussing a matter is considered normal, at least in Taiwan. Don't know about Japan for that. Conversely, when the first TGV sets went into operation in Korea, they had the standard European facing pairs of seats. That did not go over well with the female population. In essence the response was, "I am not sitting knee to knee with some man I do not know."
 
We both grew up on the edge of central London and for a few years both worked in central London. Travelling the tube at rush hour at certain times of day gave you nil personal space, in fact sometimes you had to bend and twist your body to fit with those around you.

Couple of weeks ago in Cairo where a lot of life is lived on the streets there are areas which are permantly crowded 18 hours a day, large areas the size of small towns.

We did visit Taiwan with about 3 days in central Taipei about 4 years ago and although busy didn't find it too crowded, but we may have got lucky?

In Taiwan we travelled from Koahsiung City to Taipei on the high speed train, for me that was the most interesting high speed train I've travelled on so far for various reasons.

We know very little about life or culture in SE Asia, anything you can add is very much appreciated.
 
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We did visit Taiwan with about 3 days in central Taipei about 4 years ago and although busy didn't find it too crowded, but we may have got lucky?

In Taiwan we travelled from Kaohsiung City to Taipei on the high speed train, for me that was the most interesting high speed train I've travelled on so far for various reasons.

We know very little about life or culture in SE Asia, anything you can add is very much appreciated.
I spent 5 years 1990-5 working on the Taipei Metro and 9 years, 1998 to 2007 on the Taiwan HSR.

Taiwan did an astounding amount of improvement and cleanup during that period. During the first years we were there Taipei city installed a sanitary sewer system and treatment plant resulting in a tremendous clean up of the waterways through the city. During the same period two cycle engine motor scooters disappeared resulting in considerable atmospheric clearing. By now the MRT has expanded far beyond their original plan as it was when I was there. The city is significantly less congested since its construction than it was before. I could go on for a while, but I won't but will say that the passenger related features were designed and built to meet US ADA requirements.

I was on the HSR project from it being a line on the map to riding the first trains. The basic alignment was developed by the government and put out for a "DBOM" contract. (That is Design, Build, Operate, Maintain.) I was with the DBOM. A long convoluted story here. The original DBOM included a German and French contingent who later went away to be replaced by the Japanese for track, equipment, power, and signals, although there are some things peculiarly German in some of the track details, plus some "none of the aboves" in some of the alignment details. Lengthy story behind the change, reasons mostly financial, rather than political as the Euro side would like the world to believe. Thus, the original details of the alignment and stations were based on TGV equipment, although the mainline curve standards are based on the Shinkansen standards, as they were the advisors to the government during the initial planning. The southern portion has 157.3 km of continuous viaduct. The original plan was for the one stop train to be 1 hour 30 minutes end to end, but they forgot about the curves in the last couple miles on each end so it is 1 hour 34 minutes with one intermediate stop. There has to be a certain amount of humor when the all stops train is called a local and covers the 340 km in 2 hours 14 minutes, having 9 intermediate stops. That is an average of 154.6 km/hr for the "slow" train. System speed limit is 300 km/hr. Again we managed a very tight platform gap. Vertically it is a few mm over US ADA, but horizontally it is within US ADA limits. (For those unfamiliar, ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act which has numerous requirements to enable access by persons with various disabilities.)
 
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We both grew up on the edge of central London and for a few years both worked in central London. Travelling the tube at rush hour at certain times of day gave you nil personal space, in fact sometimes you had to bend and twist your body to fit with those around you.

Couple of weeks ago in Cairo where a lot of life is lived on the streets there are areas which are permantly crowded 18 hours a day, large areas the size of small towns.

We did visit Taiwan with about 3 days in central Taipei about 4 years ago and although busy didn't find it too crowded, but we may have got lucky?

In Taiwan we travelled from Koahsiung City to Taipei on the high speed train, for me that was the most interesting high speed train I've travelled on so far for various reasons.

We know very little about life or culture in SE Asia, anything you can add is very much appreciated.
The most crowded Public Transportation I've experienced is the Subway in Mexico City during Rush Hour!( Tokyo Trains are very Crowded during Rush Hours but the people are much more polite! Don't think yall will have many problems with this in Japan)

It got so bad they had to designate Cars for Females so they wouldn't be harrased by the Macho Guys that create the crush on the Cars.

Unfortunately they couldn't do much about the Pick Pockets and Thieves that work the Stations and Trains.🤬
 
I spent 5 years 1990-5 working on the Taipei Metro and 9 years, 1998 to 2007 on the Taiwan HSR.

Taiwan did an astounding amount of improvement and cleanup during that period. During the first years we were there Taipei city installed a sanitary sewer system and treatment plant resulting in a tremendous clean up of the waterways through the city. During the same period two cycle engine motor scooters disappeared resulting in considerable atmospheric clearing. By now the MRT has expanded far beyond their original plan as it was when I was there. The city is significantly less congested since its construction than it was before. I could go on for a while, but I won't but will say that the passenger related features were designed and built to meet US ADA requirements.

I was on the HSR project from it being a line on the map to riding the first trains. The basic alignment was developed by the government and put out for a "DBOM" contract. (That is Design, Build, Operate, Maintain.) I was with the DBOM. A long convoluted story here. The original DBOM included a German and French contingent who later went away to be replaced by the Japanese for track, equipment, power, and signals, although there are some things peculiarly German in some of the track details, plus some "none of the aboves" in some of the alignment details. Lengthy story behind the change, reasons mostly financial, rather than political as the Euro side would like the world to believe. Thus, the original details of the alignment and stations were based on TGV equipment, although the mainline curve standards are based on the Shinkansen standards, as they were the advisors to the government during the initial planning. The southern portion has 157.3 km of continuous viaduct. The original plan was for the one stop train to be 1 hour 30 minutes end to end, but they forgot about the curves in the last couple miles on each end so it is 1 hour 34 minutes with one intermediate stop. There has to be a certain amount of humor when the all stops train is called a local and covers the 340 km in 2 hours 14 minutes, having 9 intermediate stops. That is an average of 154.6 km/hr for the "slow" train. System speed limit is 300 km/hr. Again we managed a very tight platform gap. Vertically it is a few mm over US ADA, but horizontally it is within US ADA limits. (For those unfamiliar, ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act which has numerous requirements to enable access by persons with various disabilities.)

Thank you George, a report doesn't come any better than this, straight from the horse's mouth. What an interesting life you have had, what's next?

In part it was the initial elevated viaduct that fascinated me, why was that 157.3 km all viaduct and from memory not so high above ground level either. And why not a mix of viaduct and running on ground level?
I am not a rail engineering enthusiast as such rather love trains as a preferred mode of travel for multiple reasons, but I do have a hearing abilty of picking up mechanical noise in vehicles even if human speech isn't always so clear to me.
On that journey I heard an axle bearing (if that exists) that was worn which became 'interesting' as the speed rose. It was about 2 m ahead of where we sat and on the opposite side of the car.

I did ponder how the workshops would test for such an event as all bearing surfaces wear at some point. Are there sound or vibration sensors? If it had been on an auto or truck it would be due for a change before other components were affected.

Thoroughly enjoyed your report, thanks for taking the trouble to write it.
 
The most crowded Public Transportation I've experienced is the Subway in Mexico City during Rush Hour!( Tokyo Trains are very Crowded during Rush Hours but the people are much more polite! Don't think yall will have many problems with this in Japan)

It got so bad they had to designate Cars for Females so they wouldn't be harrased by the Macho Guys that create the crush on the Cars.

Unfortunately they couldn't do much about the Pick Pockets and Thieves that work the Stations and Trains.🤬

Hope we get to meet up this year Jim, would love to hear more about your time riding the rails in those big cities. If you've got a tent then round to ours in July for a close-up look at the Tour de France.
 
Unfortunately they couldn't do much about the Pick Pockets and Thieves that work the Stations and Trains.🤬
OK, sorry for a completely off topic answer: Have had the pocket picking experience twice. Once on a bus in Kowloon (Hong Kong) the other a city bus in San Francisco. The first one hit a jackpot because I cash for a round trip plane ticket to Taipei in my pocket. The second one tried to buy a suit with it at a store further away than he could have walked from where he grabbed it. Fortunately the charge was rejected because it was a company travel card.
 

I am not a rail engineering enthusiast as such rather love trains as a preferred mode of travel for multiple reasons, but I do have a hearing abilty of picking up mechanical noise in vehicles even if human speech isn't always so clear to me.
On that journey I heard an axle bearing (if that exists) that was worn which became 'interesting' as the speed rose. It was about 2 m ahead of where we sat and on the opposite side of the car.

I did ponder how the workshops would test for such an event as all bearing surfaces wear at some point. Are there sound or vibration sensors? If it had been on an auto or truck it would be due for a change before other components were affected.

Thoroughly enjoyed your report, thanks for taking the trouble to write it.
I know nothing of Japanese rail, but American rail tend to use hot box detection to find hot bearings getting ready to fail. Temperature based not audible as far as I know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_boxWhile on the LSL this summer, I did hear a flat spot or spalling spot somewhere in the front bogey wheel to rail surface of a coach car while walking through the vestibule. I was curious to see what it looked like at a smoke break but never remembered to go look. It must not have been bad enough for Amtrak to pull the car out?

I further wonder if Japanese rail does use defect detectors if they can be listened to over the radio, hmm…
 
What I've been told about Chinese and Japanese personal space by people who've lived there is that the Japanese are a) more reserved (I think some Koreans may be too) and b) will give more personal space when available. One example was a Chinese man on a train talking close to an American who couldn't understand a word, but apparently they enjoyed the conversation. In Japan, my friend said, the man would never have leaned in to talk. Maybe those of you who've lived/been there can confirm.

I just remembered a story by my Nisei neighbor about being in Japan with her husband and friends (all Nisei though I think her husband was the only one who actually spoke Japanese). They got into a taxi and the driver said something about being glad that they were not American's or something along those lines (as in Japanese-American believe it or not) and got a dressing down by her husband.
 
To answer your questions, with a couple of semi unrelated comments:
Note to editors: If you think this is too much or too far off topic, feel free to modify or move. I will not be offended. I really don't plan on writing more on the Taiwan HSR beyond this. The first paragraph is more or less background and a little semi-relevant information.

While in Taiwan , my wife was teaching at the Taipei American School (TAS), teaching advanced math to middle schoolers. To diverge even further from our subject matter, here is a good example of some of the surprises you get into when moving to another country. First, TAS had two pay scales for teachers, “local hire” and “overseas hire” with the local hire pay scale being much lower than the overseas hire pay scale. She went in as a local hire because she did not apply for a teaching job until we were there. Second, in Taiwan, middle school and elementary school teachers, including those in private schools, were exempt from Taiwan’s income tax, high school teachers were not. That one we did not know until we did our local income tax form at the end of our first year there. That saved us considerable money as the rate scales are based on family income.

How is her teaching at TAS relevant? Well, one her teacher buddies took a vacation to Japan with her parents. During that trip they took a couple of trips on the Shinkansen trains. Her father was an engineer of the train driving variety for Union Pacific. On one of these trips he walked up to the front of the train and spoke with the train driver (who obviously understood and spoke some English.) After a brief conversation and showing the Shinkansen train driver his card as a Union Pacific engineer he was invited up to the cab and rode a couple stops. Afterward, when he walked back to his family all he first said was, “I can die now.” Feel I can talk about this now because it happened about 30 years in the past, so that anyone that could be found guilty of rules infractions has probably retired. You will also notice that I did not say where to where.

Said that in part to introduce this: During the test runs phase prior to opening I took some rides on the Taiwan HSR trains, some of it in the cab and some of it observing the instrumentation measuring speed, forces, power draw, etc. There was no sense that we were at all pushing or even close to the limit of practical operating speed when running at the 300 km/hr (that 186 mph in American) maximum speed. In fact there was no real sense of running a very high speed other than passing the catenary poles like they were at fencepost spacing. It should be noted that the main track alignment design is based on being able in the future to increase the speed to 350 km/hr should it be deemed to be desirable. It is comparatively cheap to modify power systems, equipment, etc. to permit higher speed but alignment you are fairly well stuck with forever. Remember, the Roman roads are today exactly where they were when built 2,000 years ago.

There were some steps into the unknown because even though the trains, power, train control systems, and most of the track features were essentially completely Japanese, there were track and some alignment features that were not fully either Japanese or German, with there being some combinations and some none of the above. The rail is the Japanese 60 kg/m section, which is very close to 119RE in shape. It is not the European EN60, also called UIC60, as some publications have said. Most of the track is the Japanese style non-ballasted track form, which, from bottom of rail down is elastomeric fasteners on precast concrete segments over an asphaltic leveling course on the bridge deck, tunnel floor, or at grade concrete slab. The high speed turnouts are German geometry and components other than use of the Japanese rail shape and placed on the German design Rheda concrete base trackform, which track form extends for some distance each side of these turnouts. (Even the rail was rolled in Germany, but to the Japanese shape dimensions.

Now we go to the question of the long section on viaduct.

The northern roughly half of the line is in hilly to mountainous country and the southern half is mostly in flatlands that are rice farmed. The idea of building this portion of the line created a major political uproar. The not long beforehand construction of the north-south “freeway” took quite a wide strip of land and the locals in the area did not want that to happen again. I put freeway in quotes because, even though described as such, it is a toll road. Thus the decision to elevate the line. An elevated line in open country makes the most sense for several reasons: First and foremost , trespass, animals, and other objects on the track virtually disappear. Second, road crossing grade separations require no road work. Third, drainage and underground utilities are unaffected. Fourth , the reason leading to the decision: land parcels are not split and there is no issue with going from one part of your land to the other. Rice or other crops can be planted straight through, with only the reduction in growth due to shading by the structure reducing crop output. Rice is a very labor intensive crop so most of the landholdings are relatively small. And finally, foundations punch through the low strength soil conditions inherent in rice farming. The original track style, thanks to the French was supposed to be ballasted, but early in our participation it was decided to go to a concrete based track form. That is a whole other subject which I will skip for now. With Taipei station as zero, this long viaduct extends from km 179.88 to km 337.20 = 157.32 km. There are 13 other elevated structures over one km long. 73% of the total length of line is elevated, and 13% is in tunnels. There are 47 tunnels in all, the longest of which is 7.36 km.

The south end station is not actually Kaohsiung itself, but a north side suburban station called Zuoying. A downtown Kaohsiung is in the maybe someday category. However, since I left there in 2007, the north end has been extended beyond Taipei Main Station to a new east side of Taipei suburban station called Nangang. As originally opened, there were three stations that had tracks installed but no station structure built. These are now all in service.

For a current schedule, go to 20200801英文時刻 (thsrc.com.tw)
 
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Earthquakes: There have been two derailments of Shinkansen equipment in earthquakes. One was of a complete train in Japan, the other was the last car only of a train in Taiwan. In both cases, everyone literally walked away from the derailment. Being on a concrete base helps, as the train will not dig into the ballast. The Shinkansen equipment has a very low center of gravity which helps reduce the possibility of overturning. JARTS (Japanese Railway Technical Service) has proposed a couple of minor modifications to equipment and track to reduce the severity of the outcome of derailments, which presumably implemented on equipment and track built since that time. The equipment modification is a relatively easy retrofit.

Sonic Boom: With speed ups of trains on the Shinkansen lines if was found that there would be a significantly loud sonic boom that preceded the train on the outbound end of the tunnel. In typical Japanese fashion, they studied this thoroughly. It appears that it only occurs within a certain range of lengths of tunnel, not happening in tunnels either longer or shorter. The precise numbers and conclusions have been kept very close to the chest. Part of the solution is the extremely long duck bill shape of the ends of the higher speed trainsets. Duckbill is not just a nickname. A study of the very minimal waves emanating from a duck or goose plunging its head into water led to scaling up of the shape of a duck's bill and head. There are also some end treatment projections of tunnel ends.
 
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Thank you George, just re-read these reports, they are fascinating. As mentioned I'm not overly interested in the engineering side of rail but these reports have grabbed my attention, hope you write more.

Why doesn't someone at AU invite you to give talks at a Gathering, if you talk half as well as you write everyone would be spellbound.

Duckbills, how far back does that shape go regards as running in service?
About 9 years ago we travelled from Paris to Madrid using an overnight sleeper express (fantastic) then on to Seville and after a few days to Malaga (both great cities in our opinions but Malaga has the edge for us as it's by the sea). Both Spanish trains were the HS AVE type with huge duckbills, and I guessed the trains were built in Spain as they export train sets don't they?

Some of the comments about the Japanese duckbill Shinkansen came across as though they were fairly recent, have I got that wrong?
 
Buying rail tickets at Haneda Airport Terminal 3.

On arrival in Japan we have to get to Akihabara Station in central Tokyo, the obvious way is Monorail to Hamamat Sucho station where we transfer to the Yamanote Line for the remaining 5 stops.

Can we buy a single through ticket or as they are two different rail systems have to buy a ticket for each system?

Thank you.
 
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Just going through the details for our 2 Shinkansen rides and came across this. Apparently after going through the Shinkansen ticket gate with a QR code we must pick up "Seat Information". Any ideas what this means in practice?

Under this heading...

Seat Information​

Be sure to pick up "Seat Information" from the Shinkansen ticket gate.

If you do not have "Seat Information" with you, you will be subject to the basic fare and limited express ticket for the section and the facility used.

  • You cannot use the "Seat Information" to enter/exit the ticket gate.
  • A train crew will check your Seat Information on the train.
Thanks
 
Buying rail tickets at Haneda Airport Terminal 3. On arrival in Japan we have to get to Akihabara Station in central Tokyo, the obvious way is Monorail to Hamamat Sucho station where we transfer to the Yamanote Line for the remaining 5 stops. Can we buy a single through ticket or as they are two different rail systems have to buy a ticket for each system?
Just get a Suica card and use it almost everywhere. If you run low on funds you can add more or return excess funds at the end of your trip (beyond a nominal card fee). No need to worry about zones, operators, or physical tickets.

Just going through the details for our 2 Shinkansen rides and came across this. Apparently after going through the Shinkansen ticket gate with a QR code we must pick up "Seat Information". Any ideas what this means in practice?
In the past you would buy a physical ticket on magnetic stock for regular trains or two tickets for the Shinkansen. You would slide these tickets into the front of the entry gate to be internally scanned and returned to you on the other side. At the end of your trip you would slide your ticket into the front of the exit gate to be collected. Today an active IC card or NFC phone is usually the only "ticket" you need but I believe Shinkansen routes still require a physical record referred to as "seat information" in your post. It seems to be saying a Shinkansen entry gate can create a "seat information" card to fulfill this requirement for users with QR codes. I would imagine you pickup this card in the same place a physical ticket would be retrieved and it cannot be used for anything else. I always used the rail pass so I could be wrong.

 
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Just get a Suica card and use it almost everywhere. If you run low on funds you can add more or return excess funds at the end of your trip (beyond a nominal card fee). No need to worry about zones, operators, or physical tickets.


In the past you would buy a physical ticket on magnetic stock for regular trains or two tickets for the Shinkansen. You would slide these tickets into the front of the entry gate to be internally scanned and returned to you on the other side. At the end of your trip you would slide your ticket into the front of the exit gate to be collected. Today an active IC card or NFC phone is usually the only "ticket" you need but I believe Shinkansen routes still require a physical record referred to as "seat information" in your post. It seems to be saying a Shinkansen entry gate can create a "seat information" card to fulfill this requirement for users with QR codes. I would imagine you pickup this card in the same place a physical ticket would be retrieved and it cannot be used for anything else. I always used the rail pass so I could be wrong.



Great info again, thank you.

If we ever get back to Texas we must all eat somewhere interesting, we of course includes Bob and anyone in the vicinity.
Then we can give you our report card for marking on how well (or not) we coped on Japan Rail.
 
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