Writing for a fine automotive establishment like The Autopian here, I’m pretty comfortable saying that I love cars. They’re as essential to daily life as they are fun, whether it’s meeting with fellow car lovers, running laps on my simulator, or even just wrenching with a friend.
But every time I visit a city with real, meaningful public transit, your New Yorks and Chicagos, I fall in love with the ability to live independently of a guzzler that demands you constantly pump with the blood and bones of brontosauruses.
Subways are cool! Not driving is cool! Walking to and from destinations and finding a sweet corner shop along the way that you fall in love is cool! And so is the cardio you’re getting along the way that keeps you trim. It ROCKS and I yearn for it.
With that in mind, I already loved experiencing Japan’s expansive (and occasionally confusing) metro system, but what I was really excited for was some high-speed rail. I’m talking the mfing bullet train, the Shinkansen. I’m so stoked to ride the thing that Bradley Pittford made a movie about, that Logan X-Man Wolverine did a frickin’ battle on top of, and that the US just frickin’ refuses to build. This is gonna be awesome!
It Wasn’t.
To say that riding the bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka was a disappointment would be a gross understatement, only not at all for the reasons you think!
The first time I flew on a plane was to tour a college in Northern California, and I was blown away as soon as the pilot put the hammer down and the twin engines started putting out all that thrust. The acceleration paled in comparison to something like a rollercoaster, but I was definitely pushed into my seat, which excited me then and still excites me now when heading out on my travels to exotic lands like Columbus, Ohio.
I had that same excitement getting onto the Shinkansen and feeling thrown through the back of my seat like Han lurching the Millennium Falcon into lightspeed. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that wasn’t remotely the case. It was so anti-the case, I was actively disappointed the entire first chunk of my roughly 300-mile trip between Tokyo and Osaka.
Again, flying to the always alluring Columbus is exciting beyond belief, as is boarding to go to the forever dreamy Odessa, Texas, but let me contextualize this lack of punch by talking about other forms of transportation, too.
Think about all the times you’ve been in a car that hit the go/no-go pedal with a bit of extra verve and how hard you get jerked in the seat. Think of riding a bus and how, even in your chair, you felt the rig’s momentum shift while you’re still wondering why don’t have to wear a seatbelt here. Same thing with a subway.
That subway lurch is real, so real that a famous actress friend of mine once told me she got the “ick” from a guy briefly stumbling as the train came to a stop, and she ghosted him right after. If a momentary stumble gets you ghosted by A-Listers, keep me far away from it and get me on a shinkansen instead because that acceleration was the most boring, gradual thing I’ve ever felt, and boy did it let me down.
But then I looked out the window.
Understanding Its Speed
When I started this article, I didn’t think I’d be dusting off my dormant AP Physics knowledge to convert formulas and think about sig figs, but here goes nothing.
I rode on the Tokaido Shinkansen line, specifically a Nozomi N700 Shinkansen, which is as follows:
- Tokaido Shinkansen is a specific line in Japan that seems to translate to “east coast route, new main line.”
- Nozomi is Japan’s fastest train service, offering the fewest stops between cities.
- The N700 is a series of trains made by several manufacturers across Japan. Basically imagine if the A321neo (my favorite medium-range plane) was just a spec that Boeing and Embraer could also make; that it wasn’t just the intellectual property of Airbus.
While I don’t know what specific “trim” of N700 I was on, they’re known to accelerate at a rate of .72 m/s^2, which translates to a gain of 1.61 miles per hour per second. If we use that to calculate the bullet train’s zero-60 time, that means the rig will get there in a mind-blowing 37.25 seconds. Wow! For something called “bullet,” I would’ve expected it to be a lot more ferocious than that.
While finding information about a plane’s acceleration is shockingly harder than I expected, some of my research claims that an Airbus A320 (the predecessor to my beloved A321neo) generally starts taking to the skies at around 150 to 165 mph. If we use the slower of the two speeds and calculate how long it takes to hit the longest runway at LAX (10,285 feet, almost two miles), you’ll be fresh out of runway in 46.75 seconds.
I know this is comparing fundamentally different vectors, and that the plane’s equation assumes a linear speed without friction while the train is an acceleration figure that operates exponentially, but I just wanna hammer home that you’re fresh out of that two-mile runway in a little under a minute while the bullet train is still struggling to hit highway speeds in almost the same amount of time.
This is what I mean when I say it’s boring. Once I accepted the N700 wasn’t gonna shoot me out of this barrel at 9mm speeds, I sat back and worked instead. After about 20 minutes of sending my best jokes to The Autopian Slack and getting ignored, I lifted my head to see we’ve finally cleared the megalopolis that is Tokyo. It’d been entirely replaced by surrounding farmland that we were just zooming by. I had to consciously focus on buildings in the distance and track them so that I could actually see the villages we’re blowing by.
I distinctly remember our train passing over a small bridge, and its elevated support beams were flying by so fast that neither the structure’s shapes nor its shadows had a chance to register with me. I felt like I was stuck inside an overgrown zoetrope. I was amazed.
What I learned in that moment is that this thing is only slow off the line, but give it time to fully put the power down and you’ll soon be catapulted to a top speed of 186 mph, with some potentially topping out at 200 miles per.
Trains, Planes, and No Automobiles
Okay so 186 mph isn’t the craziest, especially compared to planes that effortlessly cruise at 500 mph. My car has a top speed of about 190 mph and I own that frickin’ thing; I could go that fast if I wanted to (I won’t, obviously. But I could). The difference, though, is that a plane is too high to appreciate your speed as the ground slowly moves below you; your car will never hit those speeds unless you’re on a track, and even then, it’s pretty safe to say that not many here have the gonads to go that fast and just carelessly stare out the window. Ok, maybe Parker.
The Shinkansen, though? Just effortlessly hitting those speeds on ground level, within city limits. And truth be told, the whole experience of being on the train was more pleasant than a plane, too!
To get between LA and Phoenix, I’m booking way in advance and frequently spending about $300 for that ticket, and it only goes up from there. Factor in a roughly $70 dollar ride share to and from the terminal, we’re now at a good $440 dollars or so, and you should be getting there plenty early to go through security and find your terminal, and you’re losing even more money if we’re believers in the old maxim of time is money. Taking the bullet train? I just walked up the same day, said “one ticket please,” gave them about $90 USD for a reserved seat, and went on my way.
According to notoriously reputable and frequently referenced website “TravelMath.com,” average gate-to-gate time between LA and PHX is 1 hour 20 minutes, plus the conservative hour in the respective terminals, plus the roughly hour in traffic to get there. From departure to arrival between Tokyo and Osaka, it’s about 2 hours and 30 minutes, no security, and maybe ten minutes in-station. I’m not including traffic to the station here because that’s highly variable depending on where you live, if you’re taking buses, other metro lines, or walking around the corner to it, but I think I’ve still made my point here.
No, You Haven’t, Griff Daddy. What Is the Point?
First off, it’s kind of crazy you’ve made yourself comfortable enough to call me Griff Daddy, but whatever, I’ll work with it.
My point is: the Shinkansen is as disappointing on the surface as it is cool and comfortable in every single way. Did I feel like I was punted into light speed the way I wanted to be on the train? No, not at all. But it made for a pretty comfortable ride, even as the train hit its extreme one-degree tilt on a bank.
And when I say comfort, I mean it. The aforementioned A321neo has a 31-inch seat pitch (distance between the same point on two chairs), while the N700 is 41 inches. Although seat pitch isn’t a perfect 1:1 translation of how much legroom you’re gonna get in any given craft, it’s a damn good indicator of the general space available to you. As a man who clocks in at 6 foot 2 inches, or 74 inches, 187.96 centimeters, and a whopping 0.00116793 miles tall, I know that I’ve felt quite comfortable on that Airbus, so getting cozy on the N700 was as easy breathing (note that this isn’t meant to be an asthma erasure blog).
And if you have to use the lavatory while on the train, get this: they even have bidets on the train. Despite my best efforts, we have no plans to create a spin-off site called “The Stooltopian” (click that link I dare you) that allows me to talk about the intricacies of a quality toilet, or to wax poetic about how I bought a bidet of my own on my final train out of Tokyo so that it would be delivered and waiting for me by the time I got home. Until the distant dream of The Stooltopian becomes real, I’ll just say this: trust me, bidets are cool.
While I was disappointed at first by the almighty bullet trains of Japan, I left it with a deeper appreciation of the engineering, the inviting chairs, the ease in booking and riding, and, most importantly, I left with a cleaner colon thanks to the feature-packed toilets.
Okay, bye
Topshot Credit: Depositphotos.com
JR Central was bought out of the high speed rail project between Dallas and Houston. I doubt it’s ever going to be built.
https://www.chron.com/news/article/texas-high-speed-train-20252661.php
well that’s just a shame, isn’t it?
The history of the Shinkansen is fascinating. The train system in Japan was struggling prior to the launch of the high-speed line. Because the existing rail network rails weren’t compatible with high-speed trains, they had to accept the high cost of building all new lines while going against the conventional wisdom of the time that jets would be the obvious way of replacing old rail lines.
Anyone who has traveled a lot by plane knows that they have nowhere near the reliability, comfort, or convenience of the Shinkansen.
Also, excepting suicides, no one has ever been killed in a Shinkansen accident/failure, of which there have been extremely few. The system has transported billions of people in speed and comfort over more than half a century.
https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/vav9w8/over_the_shinkansens_50plusyear_history_carrying/
Boeing would kill for such a phenomenal safety record. 😉
Correction: well, one person died in 1995 when they got their hand caught in a door and that caused them to fall. It’s referred to as the Mishima Station incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishima_Station_incident
“When I started this article, I didn’t think I’d be dusting off my dormant AP Physics knowledge to convert formulas and think about sig figs, but here goes nothing”
……
“As a man who clocks in at 6 foot 2 inches, or 74 inches, 187.96 centimeters, and a whopping 0.00116793 miles tall”
So about those AP sig figs….
Listen. If I was strictly adhering to the rules of sigfigs then I’d be 0.00 miles tall and that’s just not true. I made the executive decision to clarify my height in all its eight decimal glory
At 6’2 or 74″ you’ve got two significant figures putting you at 0.0012 miles high. If you instead measured yourself to be 187.96 cm then you’ve got five significant figures for a more precise height measurement of 0.0011679 miles.
I only got a three on the exam okay nobody said I was good at this. I take photos for a living I’m a STEM failure (thank you for holding me accountable for our mathematic standards)
I used to ride Caltrain for 2+ hours every day commuting for work. I also recently rode the shinkansen Nozomi service. Like you, at first the lack of drama was kind of disappointing. But then I realized how much I hated all the stopping and starting and noise on Caltrain, and I realized that boringness is actually a feature. After a long day of work, the last thing I want is excitement while I crack open a beer on the train home. Peace, quiet, silence, consistent schedules. Y’all. Talk about doing public transit right.
Caltrain has gone electric and has all new cars on the line between San Francisco and San Jose. I’ve yet to ride the new cars, but they have got to be an improvement on the old cars which were last updated in 1985! Happy to be rid of the diesel noise and fumes.
Because of work, but also for pleasure, I’ve been riding the Shinkansen since 1984. For a period, I was essentially commuting between California and Nagaoka (on the Japan Sea side of the country). I was very happy to ride the rails comfortably for the 2+ hour trip after the long flight. It did mean that I had to take a train from Narita to Tokyo Station, but that left me with time to have some sushi and a few beers before hopping onto the train at the station. Other high speed rails I’ve ridden have been the TGV in France and whatever they call it in China. For the latter, I got to ride in 1st class which had 5 lounge-like seats located in a large space and wait-staff to serve you. We did 307 kph according to the sign in the car. It was very smooth.
During one period in my career I got to work with an EVP at Asahi Glass. Earlier in his career, he was the head of the development of the glass needed to sustain the pressure changes during transitions into and out of tunnels. I am sure that is one of the reasons for his advancement into the executive ranks.
First great article. Second instead of attacking the lack of a bullet train in the US make a business case for it. In the cities no too many stops. Along the East Coast? Nope too many stops because one stop per city requires to much other infrastructure. Along the West Coast? Well California decided to build one and said it would cost $33 billion dollars. Well $38 Billion has been spent and they don’t have an inch of traffic and the new cost is like a gazillion dollars. A bullet train, over 100 mph, needs long stretches to achieve the speed and not just slow down. They also need entirely different tracks. So unless they build bullet trains for cross country travel, that doesn’t work because only 1 or 2 stops before back again, it only works in the US for shipping products. Then have trucks do the last mile. So instead of insulting the lack of a useless bullet train make a case for it.
Make sure you include paying for it. We have cities that can’t cover public transportation and want the state to pay for it. We have states that can’t pay for it so they want federal money to pay for it. Why should Idahoans pay for public transportation in NYC? SO instead of the government should pay for it make a case. It isn’t like Japan where everyone takes public transportation and everyone pays the same rate. In most cities with public transportation the main riders are given a cheap ass discount and so no money from the customer. Investigate Japan and see rates and if they pay most of the cost.
Rural areas take way more in public funds than they pay in. The opposite is true as the density increases. If you want to have tools for every highway, then you can talk.Until then, you are just white noise.
I’m reminded of that chart that comes up once every four years or so showing that on average, red/rural states in America routinely GET more financial benefit from the federal government than they GIVE in taxes, whereas the opposite is true for blue/urban states: they GIVE/PAY more than they get.
Perhaps an urban legend, but on the surface at least, it stands to reason.
No urban legend at all. It holds true even if you remove military bases, which have the potential to skew the data quite a bit.
Roads have been run at a loss since they were first invented. In the US, you don’t even pay to drive on expressways. One of the chief reasons long-distance trains work in Japan is that expressways are all toll roads.
From our house, 50 miles from Tokyo to central Tokyo:
By car, 1 person: double the cost, 1.5 x the time door-to-door compared to Shinkansen.
2 people: same cost/person, 1.5 x the time.
4 people: half cost/person, 1.5 x the time.
That doesn’t factor in the likelihood of bad traffic, the hassle and cost of parking in Tokyo, or the ease of getting around Tokyo without a car.
Completely agree.
Also, every time I watch a show about kei cars, they always mention you have to prove that you have your own parking space before you can register the car if you live in Tokyo.
Can you imagine the uproar if that ever became a thing in New York City? 😉
Yup, not just Tokyo, even out in the boonies you can’t register a car without proof of parking space. It’s one of those supposedly “anti-car” laws that, combined with effective public transport, actually makes driving easier and more fun in the city.
I did not know that… I assumed that it was just in cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, etc… Do they do that even in rural areas where there are more empty houses than people? Is it a national/federal thing?
It’s a national thing. When I bought my first car, a Honda Beat, in 1991 it didn’t apply to kei-cars outside big cities, but now it does. I don’t know/remember when the scope was widened.
That’s partly because the profits from industries in those states are going to the blue states. They are internal colonies.
If a company is headquartered in a state and files/pays its corporate taxes there, then of course any taxable profits (or losses) it declares/sustains are reported in its federal and state tax returns. At least that’s how it works in the state where I live, and in which I owned and operated an incorporated business for 20+ years.
If more/bigger/profitible businesses (like tech for example) tend to congregate in blue states, perhaps because that’s where they can most readily attract the kind of people they want to employ, I don’t understand how that makes those states ‘internal colonies’ as you state, at least not per any normal definition of the word. Blauner’s sociological concept of internal colonialism, while often cited by right-wing pundits, does not currently have any widely-accepted intellectual basis. The fact that the concept (in part) asserts the federal government of organized/intentional exploitation of minorities for economic purposes, while being touted (most often) by (what can charitably be descried as) red state pundits is ironic, since the institution of American slavery (in which a minority actually is subjugated for economic purposes) is (generally) a red-state thing.
For factual evidence regarding my earlier generalization about red vs blue state taxes paid vs fed aid received, the very first result google provided on that subject this morning: https://apnews.com/article/north-america-business-local-taxes-ap-top-news-politics-2f83c72de1bd440d92cdbc0d3b6bc08c
Here’s the closing section of the article:
Before anyone decries the source of the above article as biased, it’s the Associated Press for Glob’s sake, so please get a grip. The AP does not grind an axe for any political viewpoint as a matter of policy. Allsides, which objectively reviews claims of media bias continues to rank the AP as ‘center’ and though our current President would surely disagree, his own record of tens of thousands of documented lies lends credence to the idea that if he says something, it’s often untrue. Thus, if he says the AP is biased (largely because they didn’t kowtow to his recent edict to rename the historic and internationally-accepted name for the Gulf of Mexico) then it’s very safe to assume that the AP is NOT biased, and thus, their article outlining red vs. blue state give vs. take of federal funds accurately represents reality (which it unsurprisingly does, since it’s based on the analysis of publicly available tax and spending data).
OK, I’ll shut up about this now, and get back to talking about cars: having owned multiple VW products, the only one I’d willingly purchase atm would be the XL1 plugin hybrid diesel hypermiling two-seater, and that one only for its novelty (though I would try to daily it). Of course, a used XL1 is way too rare and expensive for me to consider just for the novelty factor (also, I’m not sure I could register or insure it in the U.S.). 🙂
Also, though I’m more than a bit charmed by the Fiat Grande Panda https://www.fiat.it/modello/grande-panda-elettrica I’d probably choose its platform mate, the Citroen eC3 https://www.citroen.in/ec3-electric-car simply to enjoy the Citroen’s more comfortable suspension and sound insulation, even at the cost of a smaller back seat and a much less interesting design. IMO, it’s a crying shame that American buyers are denied the choice of practical, enjoyable, and affordable small cars like the Grande Panda and eC3.
“If a company is headquartered in a state and files/pays its corporate taxes there, then of course any taxable profits (or losses) it declares/sustains are reported in its federal and state tax returns.”
Operating in a state doesn’t mean you’re headquartered there. It’s also possible to structure companies in extractive industries so that the profit goes somewhere else. And while you’re talking about income tax (and let’s throw in capital gains while we’re at it) the people who receive the dividends from mines and farmland often do not live in the same state.
The poor states are mostly being used for resource extraction, lax environmental law, or cheap labor. All of these mean the income and tax burden will shift away from them, and the last two mean costs will shift toward them.
I didn’t say ‘operate’ I said “headquartered/file/pays” as your quote of my post illustrates.
I disagree with your closing paragraph in its entirety, since (to me) it seems more a work of fiction intended to support a personal worldview than anything based on actual reality. To describe it as a gross generalization would be a slight to the adjective ‘gross.’
But that’s fine of course, since there’s no reason we need to agree on anything, let alone politics. Odd are there are at least a few cars we both like, so there’s that. 😉
-Scott (loves Citroens, but probably not brave/foolhardy/wealthy enough to ever buy one).
A company is not going to set up shop somewhere if they can’t make money from it.
I lived in Alaska. The capitol of Alaska is Seattle.
There is a business case for running public transit at a loss. The entire economy benefits. Paying for it is an accounting problem, caused by Rugged Individualism, AKA the fundamental inability of our elites to share and play well with others.
I’ve felt that for years. Sure, the capitalist in me wants every undertaking to be financially self-sufficient, but realistically, I think society overall would benefit if public transit were actually free, provided as a service like other aspects of infrastructure. I live in SoCal, where the public transit system is truthfully kind of meager compared to that in other places I’ve lived such as New York and London, where life without a car is totally doable for a lot of folks if they choose.
East Coast : You don’t need to stop every trains at all the cities… And you don’t need to put the high speed train station in the city center. Look at how the lines are laid in France and Germany and how trains works. For example between Paris and Marseille some trains will go to Lyon without a stop, make a stop in Lyon Part-Dieu (central Lyon) and then stops at Valence ville, Avignon ville and Marseille. While other will go without a stop to Lyon St Exupery (Lyon Airport), Aix en Provence TGV and Marseille.
As for the tracks : lets be honest, if you want a decent network you’ll have to go eminent domain in some places to get the rights of way.
Now there’s locations beside California and East Coast where it would work in Texas, in Florida and near the Great Lakes there’s opportunities.
Griffin, I dunno if this is your first foray at the Autopian or not, but let me say welcome and thank you for your quick review of riding on Japan’s shinkansen. As an unrepentant Japanophile who has consumed far more hours of NHK programming than is probably wise, I’ve been fascinated by the evolution and safety record of Japan’s high speed rail network. Though I’ve never had the chance to ride it myself, it definitely ranks among the coolest public transportation options on the planet (and until there’s a public gravity elevator gondola/trolley, it’ll likely remain at/near the top of that list). I’m not at all surprised that it doesn’t feature any neck-snapping acceleration given that while thrilling, such a thing would probably detract from the comfortable/normal/safe experience that riding the shinkansen boasts.
Did you happen to get an ekiben (bento box from the train station) to have a complete shinkansen experience?
Was all excited to post a pic of my Shinkansen bento box but alas, not possible here! Also have some great pics of the gorgeous Shinkansen engine!
Go easy on the NHK viewing! That’s like only watching Fox News for American news lol.
I take your point of course, but I watch NHK mostly for the food, train/travel, and cultural shows… not the Japanese newscasts. Which is not to say that my idea of Japan hasn’t been influenced by the shows I do watch (which is your point I suppose) …I know that Japan is not a utopia by any stretch of the imagination. 😉
PS: only tangentially related to my post, but since I mentioned a space elevator potentially besting the shinkansen for coolness factor, I couldn’t remember which novel(s) it was where the elevator cable breaks and falls back to earth. Sure enough, the first google result I found talks about this: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/239243/where-is-the-space-elevator-falling-and-the-cable-holding-it
The one I know of that uses it as a plot point is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy. Book 2, I think.
Yes, I think that’s where I first read about such a thing… in his red/green/blue Mars trilogy years ago. 🙂
Unlike the Muskrat, I don’t feel the slightest desire to move to Mars… I can probably get like 85% of that experience by moving to certain parts of Arizona or New Mexico instead, and they’d be much cheaper. 😉
And you would be able to breathe.
Well, yes, there is that too if you’re detail oriented. 😉
But probably no (or very few) three-breasted working girls in AZ/NM, so good and bad. 🙂
The shinkansen was so quiet that I felt kind of bad for crinkling the wrappers from my bento box.
Hope you get a chance to go on it one day!
I also posted asking about the bento – it’s almost as important to learn about as the train ride itself! Ha
Agreed! SO many different kinds of ekiben available at the bigger train stations… and the prices aren’t even insane… plenty start well under the equivalent of US$10 (yes, I know the dollar’s been strong vs the yen, making Japan extra affordable for Americans lately). You almost can’t get ANY kind of interesting lunch in Los Angeles for under $10 anymore, let alone something that might make you smile like a themed ekiben. 🙂
No ekibens for me 🙁 I was so in and out of the shinkansen stations I had no time to breathe. I tore up everything available at all the konbinis though!
And not my first time around the block here! Usually doing media work bts; occasional write ups
I didn’t know the term konbini, so I googled it and now I do. Thanks Griffin. 🙂 Of course, I know about the joys of Japanese convenience stores including 7/11 and Lawson’s… I wish to GLOB that just for the positive press, 7/11 would open a Japanese version of 7/11 here in LA… stocked with rice balls and instant ramen and fried chicken cutlets in little wax paper envelopes, etc… Literally an exact duplicate of a 7/11 in Toyko, and devoid of all the greasy, barely-edible (without being drunk or high) crap on the roller grill. There’s very little I can bring myself to eat in an American 7/11, no matter my level of desperation, whereas I’d visit a Japanese konbini weekly just to see what they’ve got going on.
PS: this fantasy of 7/11 opening a Japanese version of their store in the States started when a particularly seedy 7/11 near my house on Cahuenga/Yucca was burned down a few years ago, and they were looking to open a replacement location nearby on Franklin (to the predictable objection from locals). Selfishly, I just want to shop at a kombini, but figured the novelty of it here would override much of the NIMBY fervor that yet another regular 7/11 generates.
I’m telling you the onigiri and the katsu cutlets will change your LIFE!!! My final dinner in an exterior area of Tokyo was out of a 7Eleven and it was LOVELY
Since I can’t devour any of that here in LA, I devour instead all of the Youtube videos about them. A feeble substitute I know.
*sigh* My wife and I had our first trip to Japan planned for last October. It was a bucket list trip I had planned for almost a year and I was SO looking forward to riding the shinkansen. Unfortunately my kidney stones requiring a procedure to remove completely torpedoed the trip, and given the current political and economic climate we’re not comfortable rebooking it, so this may remain an unfulfilled dream 🙁
Once you are comfortable, go. Do not hesitate. My wife and I were there two years ago for 2 weeks and we rode the Shinkansen and toured the country. Still think about the trip almost every day. Absolutely wonderful.
Echoing this. I know it sounds privileged and “haves and have nots”-y to say “just go to Japan,” so I won’t say that. What I will say is that, as soon as your stars align and it’s looking like timing makes sense, send it. I cannot express enough how wonderful it is and how worth it the trip will be
There is nothing ugly about the nose of that train.
If you want acceleration – I recommend the Incredicoaster (formerly known as “California Screamin'”) which uses LIM to accelerate to 55mph in 4 seconds.
Compared to an ICE train in Europe? Totally ugly.
Function over Form –
It’s not gratuitous – it has purpose:
The elongated shape helps distribute the pressure from the train’s movement through tunnels, preventing sudden pressure buildups that can cause tunnel boom.
Ice Trains cause Tunnel Boom
Shinkansen do not.
Seems open air shafts could handle that.
That’s a costly solution to what is easily solved for by the elongated nose.
Except they already have ventilation shafts.
I don’t remember any tunnel boom on the (multiple) ICE trains I road two months ago.
Sonic booms are not heard inside the vehicles which cause it – they are heard from outside.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg0_Kx4jsUo
It’s why Concorde was banned from flying over land – Not because the sonic booms bothered passengers, but because they bothered people living beneath the flight path.
Formula Rosa at Ferrari world in Abu Dhabi accelerates to 149.1 miles per hour in 4.9 seconds and any of the other Intamin Accelerator Coasters were similar though not as many left in the USA besides Xcelerator at Knott’s Berry Farm 0-82 mph in 2.3 seconds, all of which blow away incredicoaster in terms of acceleration.
There were former compressed air launch coasters that accelerated even harder but are now no longer operating like Hypersonic XLC formerly at Kings Dominion at 0-80 in 1.8 seconds and Dodonpa 0-112 mph in 1.56 seconds which is stronger than the hydraulic launches
My favorite roller coaster launch was greezed lighting in the former six flags Astro world. It was a flywheel launch, and despite being only 0-60 in 4s it felt far faster. I suspect the acceleration profile of a clutch dump on a 6 ton flywheel is a lot more exciting than a LIM launch?
It will always be California Screamin’ to me and I will forever curse Disney for spitting in the face of an icon by changing its name. And ugly might have been a strong word to use, but it’s certainly ~a look~ I wasn’t expecting
Agreed – Not everything in Disney needs to be linked to a movie, IMHO.
(See old Hollywood Hotel ride which is now something Marvel-related)
I will say I think the guardian’s re-skin of tower of terror was pretty nice but it’s still super annoying they got rid of it in general. Too much commercialization of my already commercialized parks, dammit!
If the US had developed the first Bullet train it would absolutely throw you off it when it starts off, but the Japanese are far too good at subtlety and making technology work with humans rather than in spite of them to put up with that kind of nonsense.
Below about 1000 km, high speed rail wins by every metric. I think I would need to go twice that before I would actually prefer flying.
New York to LA would be a stretch for sure but even if it took longer, it would be so much cheaper and more comfortable to travel by train that distance.
Especially if you have sleeper cars. Get in your train in the afternoon in New York and wake up the morning in LA
No way. I was in Newport News VA a few years ago. On site for work. We didn’t work onsite the week of holidays as it was too expensive for the client. I checked out the Amtrak Train to Pittsburgh. It was over $1,000 dollars and it would take me 3 days to get there. Where as it was a 4 hour drive. Trains are great fun but useless for going anywhere specific and on a time frame.
AmTrak is weirdly expensive. I don’t know if it’s because not enough people use it or what. Madrid to Berlin is around $360 and is 2300km New York to LA is 50% farther so maybe $550?
The cheapest non-economy flight from NY to LA is $750
Amtrak is expensive because in the rest of the world the train tracks are seen as a public good (like highways) and are built by the government, with usage fees only needing to cover maintenance.
In the U.S. the government gave the tracks away to the private rail companies in exchange for promises (which haven’t been kept), those private companies charge Amtrak a ton of money.
America’s trains are, sure. Visit a real country and be radicalized.
This part here
DC to Boston is a pretty good route. If the train is going where you are going, it’s pretty great.
I think LA to SF is good too
You’re confusing “old, legacy rail” for “high speed rail” — the U.S. has no high speed rail.
Go to Germany, France, or Japan and take their HSR — don’t use US numbers to try to justify build/not build.
I just looked up that route.
2 trains, 15 hours, starts with coach seats at $160 one way – but with business seats on the NE Regional to DC, and a bedroom on the the Floridian to Pittsburg, you can get it up to nearly $1400 round trip
https://www.amtrak.com/tickets/departure.html
Your mileage may vary.
Sorry, that’s HILARIOUS. Right now, a ticket on Amtrak for the Coast Starlight to Seattle is $200 for a seat, or $679 for a roommette. For a THIRTY-FOUR hour train ride.
Or you could spend $120 for a direct flight. I fail to see how that is less comfortable.
And your math is off. LA to NY at 150 miles per hour would take over 18 hours without any stops.
I used 186mph (300kmh) to roughly estimate a high speed rail, but there’s trains that go up to 240mph. NY to LA is obviously extreme but still not unreasonable, especially if it’s for a vacation.
I love how everyone assumes that the United States of America would, if it builds high speed rail, build inferior HSR.
Chinese high speed rail can average over 180 mph, with stops. So 15 hours.
Anywhere but the US I would choose flying for that distance. Flying in, to, or from America sucks on every level.
Love your username btw. 🙂
The US is probably too vast and too singlemindedly obsessed with ‘freedom’ (of driving your own car being somehow linked to your independence and virility) for there ever to be a viable economic model for bullet trains here. They’re STILL working on the astronomically-expensive short link between LA and Vegas (which won’t actually be fast from end to end) and even that little bit is a multi-decade
fiascoundertaking.With that said, if such a thing did exist: a SoCal to NYC bullet train line (it’d have to be it’s own line and not share existing track with passenger and cargo service) and you could buy a ticket for about what a non-stop economy plane ticket costs, I’d ABSOLUTELY buy/use it. To be honest, if I never step foot in an airport or plane again it’ll be too soon for me. 😉
I’m gonna call BS on that. High speed rail magnifies all of the problematic aspects of hub-and-spoke travel networks
It really doesn’t – the nice thing about trains is that you can let people off in the middle of the trip, avoiding the need for hub and spoke networks. Each train is effectively doing the work of 4 or 5 737s or Airbus 320s.
So far as the speed goes, consider someone living downtown in LA wanting to get to downtown San Francisco. The current high speed rail plan has this taking 2hrs and 40 minutes, and the flight is only 1hr 20.
However
It’s a 30 minute car ride from downtown to LAX. It’s a 20 minute car ride from SFO to downtown. So that’s already 2hrs 10. Then you have to park, get to the terminal, clear security and get to the gate at LAX, and then at the other end you need to get out of the terminal and get your hire car. If you can do all that in half an hour then you’re a better traveller than I am.
You’ve fallen victim to one of the classic Public Transit blunders!
The most famous is this: Never assume that the majority of people are only going between any two major city centers!
Seriously. A single train line that departs any one city can not possibly service every destination city in the country. Therefore, the hub-and-spoke model becomes neccesary.
And do you REALLY think that the majority of people arriving at SFO or LAX are actually staying in Downtown?
“And do you REALLY think that the majority of people arriving at SFO or LAX are actually staying in Downtown?”
On at least one end of the trip, yes.
Agreed – for a train ride from LA to SF, most folks are either going to stay in the City, hop board BART to the East Bay, or somehow continue North to Marin, Sonoma, etc.
Because as a former frequent traveler between SF and LA (How I miss Virgin America) that’s where most of the people on the flights between LAX and SFO were going (If they were South Bay, they’d have gone to San Jose, and the folks going East Bay would have gone thru Oakland – usually from Burbank rather than LAX)
It’s much more likely that people are going to want to do things nearer the city center than at the airport though, including taking local public transit to their final destination.
That is somewhat ironic because a lot of local transit does use the hub and spoke network approach, meaning that anyone arriving at the airport has to take a trip to downtown before getting to where they want to go.
Rail is not hub-and-spoke. It can stop in between hubs. Many spokes are thus eliminated.
When you’ve got dozens/hundreds of passengers on board, perhaps some hanging off hand straps and bars, the engineer is not going to jump to warp speed at maximum acceleration.
I haven’t ridden the Shinkansen, but I did do the Chunnel on a Eurostar 20 years ago and the acceleration was nothing, but in the two-track Chunnel was ear-opening when the train heading the other way went past. And from what I read now, the speed limit in the Chunnel is 100 mph/160 Kmph.
I’ll give the Eurostar this… it doesn’t look as dorky as the Shinkansen.
The most extreme acceleration I experienced on a public conveyance was taking off from John Wayne airport in Orange County (CA) in a BAe 146. I was sitting forward in the cabin and the cockpit door was open. The pilot was telling the first officer about the noise abatement procedure for that airport. He said, as we line up for takeoff on the runway, I do an announcement, “prepare for blastoff.” It was a maximum performance takeoff to get as high as possible beyond the threshold of the runway and then throttle back to not annoy Orange County Karens. So, full thrust while holding the plane in place on the brakes and then whooof! There we went. It was pretty impressive.
Probably fun for the pilots.
The channel tunnel is 3 bores – one for each track in each direction, and a central utilities/evacuation tunnel, so you don’t actually pass another train going the other way.
https://press.getlinkgroup.com/photos/cross-section-of-the-channel-tunnel-e3f1-0791e.html
London City has similar procedures for takeoff due to the short runway and tall buildings around it, along with having to keep out of Heathrow’s airspace above it. My husband who’s afraid of flying absolutely hates it. The BAe146 used to be the mainstay there, now all replaced by Embraer jets (mostly the E-190) and the Airbus A220. They do the ‘hold the brakes, take off like a rocket’ thing at City. It’s great fun, although I do sometimes wonder if I need to get my hand x-rayed after getting crushed by my husband’s!
It’s been 20+ years since we went on the Eurostar and my memory could be faulty, but I have a memory of some train flashing by in the opposite direction and my ears popping. But it obviously wasn’t in the Chunnel. Now it’s going to bug me that I can’t recall where it was. Do they run past each other relatively closely above ground?
I have flown on a few Embraer jets but not the A220.The Embraers impressed me. Living near Seattle, I’m sad that Boeing didn’t come up with something to compete. Airbus was smart to partner with and take over the Bombardier C series. I’m sure it’s a decent plane to fly in as well.
Good luck with your hands. 🙂
757 forever. Never a better hot rod.
Quick look on Wiki though shows that the North Downs Tunnel in Kent is a twin track bore, with a line speed of 300 km/h (186 mph). I’d guess it was that? Or maybe in France? I think the other tunnels in London and under the Thames are all single bore.
We live in Stratford so use the short section from Stratford Intl in to St Pancras relatively often, but like you I’ve not actually taken the Eurostar in well over 20 years! Heading to Paris soon though on the Eurostar which I’m excited about.
Not flown on an A220 either. The Embraers are great. We try and fly out of City as it’s a much nicer experience than trekking out to Heathrow but haven’t flown with Swiss or ITA yet and they’re the two users out of City.
Boeing did try an abortive partnership with Embraer but it fell through. But it was kind of Boeing’s fault that Airbus took over the C-Series program.
Oh yeah, departure from John Wayne is a kick – shoot the plane up as high as possible as fast as possible, and then cut the engines to a minimum and glide out to the ocean. I used to live down there as a kid, I didn’t realize flying wasn’t usually that fun till I got older.
Now I wanna book a pointless flight to nowhere out of John Wayne just so I can feel that full force punch. I’m jealous!!!
Metro-North trains in NYC can actually haul some ass when they have to. Most engineers take pride in keeping it buttery smooth, because what else do they have to strive for when running the same route, day after day?
A 6-car M7 can put your butt planted when making a quick yard move. If I remember right, each car has about a 1100-1300hp tractive motor, and they weigh something around 300k lbs. Put that all together, and they absolutely obliterate a deer, lol.
I once saw a possum launched so hard off the cow-catcher (when riding up front in the head end) that it looked like a cannon shot, and the noise it made was hilarious.
“Ping”. It must have flown half a mile.
Most metro trains are geared for acceleration. The Elizabeth Line trains here in London take off pretty damn quick too, and by the end of the platform they’re absolutely flying. But they (like the M7s) have a much lower top speed than on high speed rail (90 mph for the Elizabeth Line’s Class 345s, 100 mph for the M7).
Those top speeds are no slouches. Most Amtrak routes in the States run on tracks also used by lengthy and heavy freight trains. Sometimes it’s the freight trains that slow Amtrak down and sometimes it’s the condition of the tracks. The locomotives are all powerful enough to go 100+ mph/160+ kph if conditions permit, but that’s rare. The Acela line, between Boston and Washington, DC, can hit 150 mph/240 kph under optimal conditions on dedicated tracks.
But a trip from where I live (Seattle metroplex) to where other family lives (Sacramento metroplex), takes 12 hours in a car and more than 20 hours by train. And it costs 40% more than the gas my car would burn. If I did that by rail, I’d have to take a $7-8 Uber/Lyft ride to the Amtrak station. And then I’d have to rent a car or Uber/Lyft around once I got there. Because the bus doesn’t run out to the rural areas where my relatives live.
If I lived near Boston, the trip to Washington, DC, would cost ~2.5x the cost of gas.
I’m retired, so it’s not like I could be getting work done on the train and be making money. I could relax and admire the scenery, but having ridden cross country on Amtrak, once you get to oh, Chicago, the scenery is the back sides of factories that have seen better days.
Maybe someday, I will live somewhere in Europe or the UK (since Brexit, it’s another region) that’s walkable and/or has much better public transit options.
Rail in the UK is not nearly as cheap as you might think.
I visited my parents last year and we went into London a couple of times A round trip train ticket from Oxford to Paddington would cost ~$65, if you don’t qualify for discounts. And that’s not including bus and Tube fare. Then there is time. To get to, say, the Tate by the time they open at 10, you’d need to be out the door before 7 AM.
All to cover a distance of 55 miles.
We stayed near Waterloo Station a couple months ago, just so I could take the kids to the Tank Museum in Bovington.
A 2 1/2 hour, round trip for (2) adults and (2) kids was a little over USD $300.
A similar trip on the LIRR would have been way less than USD $200.
The Southwestern Railway is quite nice though, much nicer than American commuter rails.
The issue with UK trains is often the walk-up fares or the peak times. Tickets can be *much* cheaper if planned out in advance, but if you’re having to go on a specific day, or having to go at peak times, they get stupidly expensive. At ~$300 though sounds like you got stuck with the ‘anytime’ tickets, which are a complete ripoff.
The ‘444’ units on that line though are quite nice, one of my favourite trains on the network currently.
The Tank Museum is great. Not been in many many years, but my dad was stationed in Bovington for a while so we used to go relatively frequently as kids.
That’s because it’s privatized.
Yeah ticket prices here are a bit nuts compared to the rest of Europe.
From Oxford though to get to the Tate for 10am – you’d be on a peak ticket if it’s a weekday, and driving would take you a *lot* longer due to the congestion in central London. We had to collect a painting (long story) from central London – it took us three hours return by car, but to get there from our flat in East London would have taken about 45 minutes return.
Greenbrier, West Virginia to Baltimore, Amtrak tops out at 100+ mph for a large part of the trip. In Washington DC, they switch to an electric locomotive and DC to Baltimore is around 120.
The Cardinal. Chicago-NY via WVa
Praying for the opossums family
Traveling through the Seikan Tunnel to/from Hokkaido is the most unexciting excitement you can have on the Shinkansen. 20 minutes of darkness, but you’re under the ocean!
Best way to travel Japan, by far, is by kei car.
I always felt the sign that says “Please, be mindful of creating too much noise (keyboard typing, etc)” – tells you what you need to know.
The keyboard noise is more disruptive than the train.
IT IS! I almost felt bad doing some of my work on the train because of how quiet it was. I’m just the jackass American over here making no noise beyond a few clicks and I’m still in the wrong
Then you get the reverse culture shock flying back into Chicago with a layover. (hopefully not the case for you) There’s kids running around screaming, a full grown man screaming as he’s watching the world cup game on his laptop, and 10 people on speakerphone.
It’d be economically and objectively awesome to have one of these going from, say, LA to Las Vegas. Maybe add in some car-carrier segments so track day enthusiasts can haul their toys to the many motorsport venues out there without needing to rent/own a tow rig.
That’s just one of many potential benefits of a bullet train on such a route, but this is The Autopian and I think trains and cars can work together to make a better world.
If memory serves, re: the equation governing the motion of an object, velocity is the first derivative and acceleration is the second derivative. The rate change of acceleration is the third derivative, colloquially called the “jerk” because it is the very noticeable lurch.
Carnival rides can get away with – and in fact need – a non-zero third derivative. Consumer-oriented mass transit ideally wants the third deriv to be zero in order to provide a quality user experience, hence the Shinkansen’s approach.
In high school we would call someone a “third derivative” as an amusing insult.
100%. During my time engineering battery electric drivetrain for Transit Buses we intentionally limited the both the maximum acceleration and the rate of change of acceleration (jerk) as not to throw passengers around.
Since it made double the power and torque of the typical diesel transit bus when it was unlimited it was actually pretty damn fast… for a transit bus.
That is pretty darn cool!
Yes, for really any form of mass transportation, maintaining as much passenger comfort as possible is a key design/engineering factor. And to be fair, it’s desirable for any train beyond a commuter special which makes frequent stops, to make acceleration and braking as imperceptible as possible. It’s about seemingly effortless power — completely belying the amount of raw power it takes to move a train up to high speeds.
The Shinkansen simply has no need to be anything but deceptively comfortable at all times. No sudden acceleration or braking. Curves are long and smoothly banked, along with the tilt feature on the newer trainsets, to ensure there’s no sudden lateral motion or indication of high speeds on curves. It’s intended to be utterly smooth and virtually imperceptible that you’re travelling at such high speed unless you look out the window. The roadbed and rail alignment are meticulously maintained for a glassy-smooth ride.
And despite the seemingly slow acceleration, the trains keep to an exacting timetable, down to seconds. They come to a full stop at stations at precisely defined positions within centimeters, on-time, each time, every time. (Famously, during severe winter weather, the railways in Japan apologized publicly and profusely for trains being delayed by even a few minutes.) The Japanese railways’ passion for precision and comfort is everywhere, and the Shinkansen is the ultimate expression of it. The real amazement factor is the sheer meticulous, exacting way in which it’s run. It’s an entire system of interconnected factors, from the dispatchers, the signal control systems, the coordination with other trains, the crews and conductors managing the train, the track workers who maintain the tracks and roadbed, plus the train itself, all combining to deliver a supremely comfortable and perfectly-timed trip in any class of seating. Every. Single. Time.
To put it more succinctly: it’s pretty cool
On the Japanese train, do they scream at you over the loudspeaker to sign up for an Alaska Airlines Mastercard as you pull into your destination? If not, they haven’t yet begun to enjoy unfettered capitalism.
Nah, the Japanese are far too civilized for the madness we pass as civilization here.
C’mon, FleetwoodBro, they’d never shill out Alaska Airlines on you because they have CLASS.
they do shill out Hawaiian Airlines though
Whenever I am in a city with really good transit, I immediately realize why I have absolutely, positively, utterly, ZERO desire to live that close to that many other human beings (and I have lived in London and Budapest – no thanks). I will take suburban sprawl elbow room and my cars, thanks. I don’t like other people all that much. I actually live in two happy medium places, where I have elbow room but everything I need on a daily basis is a five minute drive away.
I fly all the time for work. The only reason I am at the airport 45 minutes to an hour before boarding is in case of traffic dilemmas GETTING to the airport, and so I can have an expense account lunch/dinner. I could easily get to any of my three home airports 15 minutes before boarding and get to the gate with time to get a coke along the way. Arriving home, 10 minutes after the aircraft door has opened I have paid for my parking and am getting on the highway.
Acceleration is utterly meaningless for most modes of transportation. Airplanes have to accelerate hard in many cases because runways have a finite length in a way that rails and roads do not. Subways have to speed up and slow down fast BECAUSE the stops are so close together – it’s the only way to get throughput in the system. But that said, if you have ever taken off in a lightly loaded airplane on a LONG runway, it can be a pretty leisurely affair using rather less than full power (actually, airplanes rarely use FULL power, as modern twins are seriously overpowered to start with, and more power equals more fuel and more wear). And if you want to get thrown around on a train like an amusement park ride, try the Acela between Boston and NY. Though given the money they have spent on the tracks in the 15 years since I last did it, I hope it’s nowhere near as awful as it used to be. NYC to DC was much, much smoother. Still not much in the way of noticeable acceleration. I’ve ridden the TGV and ICE in Europe, nice smooth rides there. The food sucked though.
But I do like having trains as an option in places where they make sense. Which is not the majority of the USA, though we certainly should be doing better in the places they DO make sense. But that would require taxing *something*, and Americans have an intense dislike of that thing. Or ticket prices on pair with airfare (which is actually very much the case with Acela).
This is the thing that so many Americans don’t seem to get. People will say ‘I don’t want to take a train from New York to Dallas, it’s far too far, so we shouldn’t build any trains’.
Nobody’s suggesting such a long journey is better by rail. Rail is for sub-500 mile journeys in the most part. I actually think there’s probably quite a few corridors that would make a lot of sense in the US. The North East corridor for certain, with proper HSR from Boston to DC rather than the relatively slow Acela. The Canadian proposal from Windsor to Quebec City, in a sane political climate, would be good extended through to Detroit and to Chicago (I count 24 daily flights on a random day in May between Chicago and Detroit on the big three airlines and Southwest). California is an easy one as well.
The other big issue is often nimbyism and poor planning – as seen in California right now.
Exactly. We are simply never going to have the sort of “everywhere to everywhere” train network that existing in the 1930s again, and to some extent still exists in Europe (kinda-sorta, but it’s not as great as people here think it is). But there are many city pairs that could have decent connections. With a GREAT example being the Texas Triangle plus Austin.
But at the same time, high speed rail is REALLY expensive to build, and with so many NIMBYs and environmentalists who don’t want a single blade of grass disturbed on top of that it’s just about impossible today. Brightline has a shot with the “LA” to Las Vegas line – but it’s literally through the middle of nowhere through a desert, and the “LA” end is not really in LA, but waaaay out east of the city, because it would cost FAR too much to bring it into the city. Same the issue with the San Francisco to LA line, plus mountains. Sure, the Chinese can and have done all sorts of neat things – but that’s a command economy with massively higher population density. The government can just say “make it so”, and it happens.
Yep. The remarkable thing about the Shinkansen is just how unremarkable it is to ride.
The best way to experience the speed is to be on a platform when one is passing at full chat- the whomp of displaced air is impressive.
Just wait at a station for a Shinkansen to come through; that’s the exciting part.
Otherwise yeah, it’s smooth, comfortable, spacious, clean, and quiet. No need for noise canceling headphones. The food is miles beyond your typical airplane fair. No long security lines either.
I’m headed to Japan next month, and am looking forward to the multiple Shinkansen rides I have planned.
I was gonna post the same thing! The Shinkansen was cool, but like the article said, we didn’t get this sense of unimaginable speed. Until we were waiting on a platform and one shot by at full speed, which caused my wife to shout, “HOLY SHIT!” in awe. Seeing a skyscraper shoot past you at 180mph is definitely not an everyday thing for me.
what a great way to phrase that. I wish I had a more forgiving schedule that allowed me to sit around and watch them blow by; I’m sure it would’ve been wild!
I’ve never been to Japan, but Shanghai has a Maglev train between the airport and the city. It is capable of 400+ kph, so over 240 MPH. However, they don’t always put the pedal down. The first time I rode it I believe it reached 400, or at least pretty darn near. Like the Shinkansen, it doesn’t have an impressive 0-60 time. But there is also no one telling you to sit down for take-off, so it kinda has to accelerate gently. Since it floats on electro-magnets, the ride is amazingly smooth. No real sensation of speed until the sister train passes going the opposite direction at the same speed. Passing another train at a combined speed >500 MPH is very “noticable.” Empty your bowels kind of noticable if you are really caught off guard.
I’ve been fortunate enough to ride both.
In Shanghai, there is definitely a loud *bang* when two trains pass in opposite directions, which the Shinkansen genuinely does not have. OTOH, my train went 437km/hr, which is the fastest I have ever gone on the surface of the earth, and the fastest I am ever likely to go.
Unless I somehow manage to get a Bonneville team together…
Ordinary CRH trains in China also do not have a bang.
Even on some of the normal express trains, one passing in the opposite direction had me shaking in my boots. I don’t explicitly remember passing another train while on the shinkansen, but I’m sure it would’ve required me changing my undies
It is not generally accurate to say bidets that are cool; some are heated.
The best are the ones that allow you to set the temp.
I made the mistake of installing an unheated bidet at my place in Maine. Summer, it was fine, if a tad bracing. First use in the dead of winter was the last use, and it was quickly replaced by one that connected to both the cold AND hot water supplies. My boys tried to crawl up into my braincase.
Hot water takes too long to get through the piping. Instantaneous electric heat is where it’s at (both water and seat). All toilets should have a GFCI outlet by them for a Toto Washlet S7.
Nope, works perfectly. The hot water side stays more than warm enough for the bidet to be the proper temperature. After all, you don’t WANT hot water up the bum, you just don’t want ice water – and ice water is what comes out of the tap in a Maine winter. ~45F in the case of my house, dropping 40F if you let it run for a while.
My 1820 house doesn’t have an outlet anywhere NEAR the toilet, but the toilet is only 10′ from the hot water storage tank. The actual water heating is via the oil furnace, typical for ye olde New Englande shacke.
An ice cold bidet in blizzardous conditions is a fear I didn’t know I had. Thanks, Kev
I really, really appreciate that you converted your height into miles.
Height: 1.12 millimiles
I knew it was the only way some people could properly contextualize my height, Give Me Tacos or Give Me Death. I do it for them.
So… it’s a Camry. Ruthlessly efficient and reliable, inscrutibly comfortable, and just like the wool upholstery in the emperor’s limo, will not offend delicate Japanese sensibilities.
And deceptively quick – especially the newest hybrid ones. If I’m not paying attention to the speedo on the interstate I’m up over 90mph before anything feels remotely amiss
Not a horrible comparison! But yeah, wanna echo GFunk: a Camry that actually gets goin pretty good. Can’t emphasize that enough
Had the opportunity to take it from Tokyo to Kyoto in 2022. Felt the same way, kind of underwhelmed when leaving, but then I pulled out the speedometer app on my phone to see how fast we were going. Smooth easy ride for sure, and the price is right.
The price is soooo right. I’ll gladly pay that all day to bounce between cities in that level of comfort