There’s a group in Japan — sorry, I’ve lost the link with the specifics — that’s ready to take luxury train travel to a whole new level. Here’s a look at the some of the ideas for fancy new rail cars the designer has recently presented. I guess what bothers me is that Japan has…
The Japanese started it all back in the 60s when they introduced the first so-called bullet trains, the shinkansen. The French followed with their TGV, the abbreviation for train à grand vitesse, which translates literally as “high-speed train”. Today, high-speed rail has become the preferred means of travel for most of the rest of the world…
In hindsight, I didn’t allow enough time for Shanghai. There is just too much to see and, understandably, visitors are taken by the incredible, even breathtaking architecture of the soaring, modern skyscrapers in the Financial District. Given more time, however, I would have liked to seen more of the traditional old parts of the city…
Item One: The Japanese government has given the go-ahead to a private firm, JR Tokai, to begin work on a new high-speed train that will run between Tokyo and Osaka. Initial cost estimates are 9 trillion yen or about $111 billion. But here’s the thing: this train will use maglev (magnetic levitation) technology! Item Two:…