Shinkansen Trivia
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48 free Shinkansen trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Shinkansen trivia quiz covers Japan's bullet trains from the opening run of October 1964 to the maglev that will one day link Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes. The easy questions are the ones any visitor to Japan picks up: what the word means, which event the first line opened for, the fastest service on the Tokaido line and the network's astonishing safety record. From there it moves through the men who built it, the World Bank loan, the standard gauge decision, the 0 series and every generation since. The harder end is for railway enthusiasts: the Romancecar that gave engineers confidence, the wartime plan to run to Singapore, why the trains have such long noses, the bird that inspired the 500 series, what Doctor Yellow does, the two derailments in six decades, the seconds of average delay JR Central reported in 2016, and where outside Japan you can see a 0 series nose. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the network, its lines and its rolling stock before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Japan, Channel Tunnel and famous trains quizzes next.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Known abroad as the bullet train, what does Shinkansen literally mean?
New main line
New main line is the literal reading; the English nickname instead translates dangan ressha, a label coined for a high-speed scheme planned back in 1939.
Q 02The first Shinkansen line opened in October 1964, days before which event?
The Tokyo Summer Olympics
The Tokyo Summer Olympics opened nine days after the first trains ran, yet the line was not begun for them: ground was broken a month before Tokyo was even chosen as host.
Q 03Bullet trains from Tokyo bypass the old Osaka Station; which purpose-built station do they use instead?
Shin-Osaka
Shin-Osaka was built about 3 km north of the old station because land in the crowded centre was short and the site let the line carry straight on westward later.
Q 04Shinkansen cleaning crews at Tokyo Station turn a train around in about seven minutes, then do what on the platform?
Bow to waiting passengers
Bow to waiting passengers: the crew lines up and bows in unison to show the train is ready, a routine that visiting reporters christened the seven-minute miracle.
Q 05The engineer who shaped the first bullet train's rounded nose had spent World War II designing what?
Warplanes
Warplanes: Tadanao Miki was a former aircraft engineer, and colleague Tadashi Matsudaira used what he knew about steadying fighter wings to stop the new train swaying at speed.
Q 06If the overhead power fails, how can the N700S bullet train, unlike any Shinkansen before it, still move?
On lithium-ion batteries
On lithium-ion batteries: introduced in 2020, it was the first high-speed train able to crawl along on stored power, far enough to clear a tunnel or bridge so passengers can get out safely.
Q 07Railway president Shinji Sogo, champion of the first Shinkansen, resigned in 1963 over what?
Its soaring cost
Its soaring cost: the budget nearly doubled to 380 billion yen, and when the first train pulled out a year later the man who had championed the line was not on the platform.
Q 08After the first bullet train, chief engineer Hideo Shima moved on in 1969 to lead Japan's work on which faster machines?
Space rockets
Space rockets: Shima ran Japan's National Space Development Agency until 1977, having left the railway a year before the bullet train he designed carried its first passengers.
Q 09Which lender's US$80 million loan in 1961 helped fund the first Shinkansen line?
World Bank
World Bank: finance minister Eisaku Sato advised railway chief Shinji Sogo to seek the loan partly because it bound the government to finish the line even if the cabinet changed.
Q 10What is an ekiben, a familiar part of Shinkansen travel?
A boxed meal sold at stations
A boxed meal sold at stations: by the usual telling the first was just rice balls wrapped in bamboo, sold at Utsunomiya in 1885; today's boxes show off each region's specialities.
Q 11The Sujahta ice cream long sold from Shinkansen snack trolleys is famous among passengers for being what?
Too hard to eat at first
Too hard to eat at first: kept on dry ice and made with little air, it defeats the plastic spoon, so the advice is to wait ten minutes.
Q 12Shinkansen trains reverse at each terminus, so why does nobody ride backwards?
Every seat row swivels
Every seat row swivels: crews spin them all to face forward during the turnaround, and a group can turn a row themselves to sit face to face.
Q 13Which is the fastest service category on the Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka?
Nozomi
Q 21To quieten the power collector on the 500 series' roof, engineers copied the serrated wing feathers of which bird?
Owl
Owl: wind-tunnel tests on a stuffed owl showed that comb-like feather edges break the air into tiny quiet vortices, so matching notches were added to the collector.
Q 22Which anime franchise got its own 500 series livery in 2015 to mark the San'yo line's 40th anniversary?
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Neon Genesis Evangelion was marking its own 20th anniversary, and the team behind the anime designed the livery and the first two cars; in 2018 a Hello Kitty train took its place.
Q 23What is Doctor Yellow?
A track and wire inspection train
Nozomi trains stop only at major stations and reach Osaka in about two and a half hours; they are among the few JR trains that Japan Rail Pass holders must pay extra to ride.
Q 14Which limited-stop service cut the Tokyo-Osaka run to four hours when the line opened in 1964?
Hikari
Hikari trains called only at Nagoya and Kyoto; a year later the run was down to three hours ten minutes, short enough for a business trip to Osaka and back in a single day.
Q 15In 2023 a chartered bullet-train carriage travelling at full speed between Tokyo and Nagoya staged which combat sport?
Pro wrestling
Pro wrestling: Minoru Suzuki and Sanshiro Takagi brawled down the aisle without damaging the train, and all 75 seats sold out in half an hour.
Q 16The Genbi Shinkansen, which ran in Niigata from 2016 to 2020, was billed as the world's fastest what?
Art museum
Art museum: each carriage was given over to a different contemporary artist, and one held a floral artwork designed to sway with the train's own motion.
Q 17What lifts Japan's L0 train clear of its track, letting it set a 603 km/h rail speed record in 2015?
Superconducting magnets
Superconducting magnets on the train react with coils in the guideway to lift and drive it; with no wheels on rails, the line it was built for is designed for 505 km/h.
Q 18To run straighter than the coastal route, the planned Chuo Shinkansen is being bored under which mountains?
Japanese Alps
Japanese Alps: about nine-tenths of the 286 km to Nagoya will be underground, because a short, straight route mattered more to the railway than serving towns along the way.
Q 19Why do modern Shinkansen trains have such long, elaborately streamlined noses?
To reduce tunnel boom
To reduce tunnel boom: a blunt nose rams air down a narrow bore like a piston, and the pressure wave bursts out of the far end with a bang that would breach Japan's strict noise limits.
Q 20The nose of the 500 series was modelled on the beak of which bird?
Kingfisher
Kingfisher: engineer and keen birdwatcher Eiji Nakatsu noticed that it plunges from air into water with barely a splash, and computer tests then picked an almost identical shape as the best one.
A track and wire inspection train: it checks the line at full speed on an unpublished timetable, so spotting one is said to bring luck; sensor-fitted passenger trains are now taking over its job.
Q 24The Toreiyu Tsubasa, a sightseeing bullet train styled after a hot-spring town, offered passengers what on board until 2022?
Foot baths
Foot baths: passengers could soak in warm water as Yamagata's scenery slid past, then move on to tatami-mat seating or a bar pouring the region's sake.
Q 25How late does the average Tokaido Shinkansen train run?
Under two minutes
Under two minutes: JR Central's published average was 1.6 minutes per train in fiscal 2023 and under a minute in 2018, and those figures include delays caused by natural disasters.
Q 26How many passengers have died in Shinkansen derailments or collisions since the first line opened in 1964?
None
None: not one passenger has died in a crash since 1964. Deaths on board have come from other causes, such as a fire a passenger set on a Tokyo-Osaka train in 2015.
Q 27What caused the first derailment of a Shinkansen in passenger service, in October 2004?
The Chuetsu earthquake
The Chuetsu earthquake hit as the train ran near Nagaoka, ending 40 years without a derailment in service; even so, nobody aboard was hurt.
Q 28What warns Shinkansen trains to brake seconds before an earthquake's main shock arrives?
Its faint first tremors
Its faint first tremors: seismometers catch the small, fast waves that reach the surface ahead of the damaging shaking and send an alarm, so trains are already slowing when the main shock hits.
Q 29Roughly how many seats does one Tokaido Shinkansen train have?
About 1,300
About 1,300: each 16-car set seats just over 1,300 people, and with well over 300 departures a day that is how one line carries more than 400,000 passengers daily.
Q 30Thanks to their extra width, most full-size Shinkansen cars seat ordinary-class passengers in which layout?
2+3
2+3: five seats across, where most trains elsewhere manage four; pay extra for a Green Car and the row shrinks to 2+2.