A Railroad Runs Through It: Japan, the United States and Dreams of a Renaissance on Rails
Alexander Boylston (Shiga, 2018-2021)
“We have airplanes which fly three times faster than sound. We have television cameras that are orbiting Mars. But we have the same tired and inadequate mass transportation between our towns and cities that we had 30 years ago.”
So lamented a U.S. president as he signed into law a landmark piece of legislation to lay the groundwork for a revitalization of the passenger rail network in the United States. (1) Envious of other countries that had commenced high-speed passenger rail service, the president also noted that “an astronaut can orbit the earth faster than a man…can get from New York to Washington” and that the administration would take concrete steps to inaugurate high-speed rail in the United States. (2)
President Lyndon B. Johnson delivered these remarks upon signing the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act into law in 1965. The Act, in part motivated by the commencement of Shinkansen (or “bullet train”) service in Japan in 1964, set out to demonstrate that the United States could also be at the forefront of technological development in transporting its citizens. (3)
Yet, Johnson’s utterance still applies to the state of American passenger rail today. Nearly sixty years later, the United States and Japan stand at starkly different stages in the development of high-speed passenger rail (HSR): One boasts over 2,000 miles of track, reaching most large population centers, on which trains run upwards of 199 miles per hour while the other has less than one-fifth of such track, where the fastest speed at which trains may run on certain well-kept sections is a mere 110 miles per hour. (4, 5 & 6)
This article examines why these two countries ended up diverging so noticeably in their transportation infrastructure. As other countries pursue HSR to better connect citizens and alleviate traffic problems both in the sky and on the ground, Japan will be well poised to aid the United States in its current attempts to introduce high-speed rail. (7)
From Ruin to Railroad Prowess
Almost destined for stardom upon its debut, the Shinkansen quickly became a Japanese icon. The Japanese government itself called the system “full of miracles” (in no small part due to its lack of passenger fatalities in sixty years of service) and the trains inspired similar systems in both Asia and beyond. (8&9) As JETs, many of us with placements along the network likely have fond memories of taking the Shinkansen from Tokyo following orientation, perhaps enjoying a rice ball or some chilled tea as the train whisked us to our new homes.
While Japan had a railway tradition dating back to the Meiji Restoration, the Shinkansen could in some ways be considered an accident. Following Japan’s renunciation of armed forces after World War II, military research facilities such as the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Aviation Technology Center were disbanded and engineers were forced to seek work elsewhere, including at the Railway Technical Research Institute. (10 & 11) As a result of being unburdened by a defense budget and possessing a “surplus of experienced military engineers,” by 1959, Japan had focused its efforts on the construction of the first Shinkansen line from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka. Five years later, it began running trains. (12)
As one researcher put it, “The success of HSR in Japan reflected close coordination between politicians and railroaders, a national sense of purpose, and the willingness of government officials to create a single, signature showpiece of the country’s post-war recovery.” (13) With Tokyo hosting the 1964 Summer Olympics, the Shinkansen became an “unlikely star” of the games. By shaving three hours off the journey between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka, Japan’s two largest urban areas, it showcased to the world how Japan had reemerged as a technological juggernaut. (14)
Today, the Shinkansen network holds a 69.1 percent market share of journeys between 310 and 435 miles in length, and, as of 2019, the system has carried upwards of 6.4 billion passengers. (15 & 16) Even now, the Shinkansen network continues to grow, with the latest extension to Fukui Prefecture opening in March 2024. (17)
Fits and False Starts
Some things will inevitably go wrong with any ambitious, large-scale government project. Even the Shinkansen, which is a success by myriad measures, has been dogged with issues from the outset, including high construction costs and winter breakdowns. (18 & 19) However, to understand why American HSR projects so rarely got off the ground (or left the depot), some historical context is necessary.
The contested tale of HSR in the United States begins with one man: Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell. A longtime patron of railways, Pell was firm in his belief that the Northeast Corridor—spanning 225 miles between Boston and Washington, DC— was an optimal area in which to commence a large-scale improvement of American rail infrastructure and tried to convince President John F. Kennedy as such. (20 & 21) The project stalled briefly before the Shinkansen reignited the debate, after which the Johnson administration made it a clear policy goal to invest more in passenger rail, beginning with the Northeast Corridor. (22)
Lofty promises aside, the most tangible result of Pell’s and Johnson’s efforts via the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act were two trains: the TurboTrain and the Metroliner, both of which ran for less than a decade before their discontinuation in the mid-1970s. (23) The former, though still holding the record for the fastest speed clocked by a train in North America at 170.8 miles per hour, fell out of favor due to high fuel costs and poor infrastructure (24) while the latter succumbed to poor coordination between the public and private sectors, along with a lack of concomitant infrastructure development. (25)
Even with the subsequent introduction of higher-speed Acela services in 2000 by Amtrak, which reach “emerging high-speed rail” speeds of 90 to 110 miles per hour, no American HSR projects have progressed past the preliminary stages since the TurboTrain and Metroliner. (26) In other words, the U.S. passenger rail system changed more in four years (1965–1969) than in the following four decades (1971–2009). (27)
Japan may be considered an ideal country for HSR due to its population distribution and compact geography, but other large countries like China have also made HSR work. (28 & 29) Where did things get derailed, so to speak, in the United States?
First and foremost, for HSR to reach its potential like the Shinkansen did, it needs a separate infrastructure both to avoid the risk of collision with other trains and to ensure that tracks are as straight and level as possible to minimize the risk of derailment. (30 & 31) Senator Pell himself was not an engineer and wanted to utilize existing infrastructure rather than lay new tracks, meaning that HSR would share track with freight and slower passenger trains. (32) Unfortunately, as argued by Representative Tammy Duckworth in 2016, “Just as a race car can’t run on a dirt road, you cannot run a bullet train on 100-year-old tracks.” (33) Exemplified by the failures of the TurboTrain and Metroliner, along with the extremely limited trackage where Acela trains may attain top speed, the lack of well-maintained, specialized infrastructure has heavily stunted the growth of HSR.
Second, by focusing on rushing projects like the Metroliner to boost reelection chances rather than developing long-term programs, the Johnson administration inadvertently laid the groundwork for politicizing railway development. (34) Now, HSR projects in the United States have become yet another victim of partisan politics. (35) Many rail projects therefore fail to get the inter-state and inter-party cooperation which is necessary to bring them to fruition because the U.S. federal government has generally seen funding them as an afterthought. (36)
Finally, “Congress has generally provided Amtrak enough funding to survive, but not enough to make significant improvements in its service, or to maintain all of its infrastructure in a state of good repair.” (37) Unlike the current private Japan Railways (JR) companies, which were well-planned and created to ameliorate the poor financial state of Japan National Railways while expanding rail access, Amtrak was a “quick policy fix” created in 1971 to salvage what was left of American passenger rail rather than improve it, a situation which continues today. (38 & 39) The result is that, over fifty years later, improvements to passenger rail continue to rely heavily on private sector assistance. (40)
Putting aside talk of American exceptionalism, car dependency, and geography, the stunted growth of HSR in the United States is very much attributable to policy choices. (41, 42 & 43)
The Project Now at the Center
Examples of U.S.-Japan cooperation with transport infrastructure are not hard to find. In two notable examples, Osaka-based Kinki Sharyo—a railroad vehicle manufacturer—provides light rail vehicles to several major U.S. cities while JR Central supported a project to bring magnetic levitation (maglev) trains to the Baltimore–Washington, DC rail corridor. (44 & 45) The most promising opportunity now for the commencement of HSR anywhere in the United States—and for U.S.-Japan cooperation in HSR construction—involves Texas Central Railway.
Texas Central Railway is a company aiming to construct and operate an HSR line between Dallas and Houston, offering patrons the chance to reduce a 3.5 hour (at least) journey by car to a mere 90 minutes by train. (46) Following in the footsteps of the short-lived Texas High-Speed Rail Authority, the company claims that it “will rely entirely on private capital” for all aspects of its operation. (47) This decision follows the trend of private rail operators like Brightline, which is currently constructing a HSR line from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, while also demonstrating perhaps a frustration with public officials who balk at the idea of funding rail projects. (48)
The project has had its fair share of setbacks, including opposition from residents, leadership and board resignations, court battles, and funding issues. Consequently, as of May 2024, the earliest the trains could operate would be in the early 2030s. (49, 50, 51 & 52)
Despite adversity, the company has secured one key backer: Japan, whose Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport and Urban Development purchased a $40 million share in Texas Central in 2015 while also arranging $300 million in loans from its official export credit agency, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. (53) Additionally, JR Central will furnish the trains for the system, which will be modeled after the Tokaido Shinkansen currently running from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka. (54)
After years of uncertainty, the project had two strokes of luck. In 2023, Amtrak announced that it would work with Texas Central to further the project, including integrating ticketing systems, and in April 2024, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida gave a joint endorsement of the project following a meeting in Washington, DC. (55 & 56)
Get Out of My Dreams, Get into My (Train) Car
It remains to be seen if Texas Central can achieve what both countries dream of it achieving. However, for it and other such HSR projects to have a greater chance of success, U.S. policymakers would be wise to note a few lessons gleaned from the Japanese experience.
First, in any extensive infrastructure project, cooperation is the name of the game. The Shinkansen came together, and still operates well, because of close interaction between multiple entities, including Japan’s national government, prefectural and local governments, engineers, and the private sector. Even if projects like Texas Central aim for full private funding and operation, they still require consent, assistance, and supervision from national, state, and local authorities to make sure that the system can operate smoothly.
Second, much like the mid-20th century space program that inspired President Johnson’s quote, HSR (as well as passenger rail) should be viewed as an investment in the United States’ future rather than just mere campaign fodder. Multiparty democracies with successful HSR programs like Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea have managed to keep partisanship out of railway development. Likewise, policymakers must concede that, even if such a project may not benefit them personally or politically, it can nonetheless be worth pursuing for current and future constituents. After all, most Americans indicate a willingness to use HSR should it be built near them. (57)
Last, but certainly not least, policymakers must acknowledge that something as ambitious as HSR will inevitably encounter obstacles, whether they be financial, legal, or technological—or potentially all three. The Shinkansen and the systems following it have all faced such hurdles. However, instead of abandoning the trains like U.S. politicians did with the TurboTrain and Metroliner, multiple generations of Japanese policymakers have learned from these difficulties to create a technological marvel.
No matter how the sagas of Texas Central and other rail projects play out, one thing still rings true: If the United States wishes to consign President Johnson’s quote to the dustbin of history via HSR, it has no better partner with whom to do so than Japan.
About the Author
Alexander (Alex) is a Georgia native who taught English as an ALT in rural Shiga Prefecture from 2018 to 2021 via the JET Program. He holds a dual bachelor’s degree in political science & international affairs (with Chinese and Japanese language minors) from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree in international public administration & politics from Roskilde University in Denmark. He currently resides in Denmark and works as a researcher and writer at Assembly Voting, northern Europe’s largest supplier of end-to-end verifiable election systems. When he isn’t writing, Alex enjoys traveling, reading, cycling, volunteering at ice hockey games, and learning languages.
References
(1) Lyndon B. Johnson, “Remarks at the Signing of the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act,” September 30, 1965, available online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/241348.
(2) David Reinecke, “Moonshots to Nowhere? The Metroliner and Failed High-Speed Rail in the United States, 1962–1977,” Journal of Transport History 43, no. 1 (2022): 33–53, https://doi.org/10.1177/00225266221074951.
(3) David Alff, “Why America Still Doesn’t Have Fast Trains,” TIME, December 11, 2023, https://time.com/6340931/america-high-speed-rail-history/.
(4) Micah McCartney, “How High-Speed Rail Transformed Japan,” Newsweek on MSN, August 1, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-high-speed-rail-transformed-japan/ar-BB1r0Edx.
(5) “Lagging Behind: The State of High-Speed Rail in the United States: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, Second Session, July 14, 2016,” (U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2016.), 3.
(6) David R. Peterman, John Frittelli, and William Mallett, “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” (Congressional Research Service, 2009).
(7) Panrawee Rungskunroch, Anson Jack, and Sakdirat Kaewunruen, “Socioeconomic Benefits of the Shinkansen Network,” Infrastructures (Basel) 6, no. 5 (2021): 68, https://doi.org/10.3390/infrastructures6050068.
(8) “The Shinkansen, Japan’s High-Speed Rail, Is Full of Miracles,” Government of Japan, August 2014, https://www.japan.go.jp/tomodachi/2014/autumn2014/the_shinkansen_japans_high-speed_rail.html
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(11) Tetsuo Shimomae, Birth of the Shinkansen (Springer, 2022), 1.
(12) Black, A Short History of Transport in Japan, 172.
(13) Albert J. Churella, “Private Agendas and the Public Good: The Contested Development of High-Speed Passenger Rail Transport in the United States,” Journal of Transport History 43, no. 1 (2022): 11–32, https://doi.org/10.1177/00225266221076380.
(14) Reinecke, “Moonshots to Nowhere,” 39.
(15) Rungskunroch et al., “Socioeconomic Benefits of the Shinkansen Network,” 1.
(16) Black, A Short History of Transport in Japan, 174.
(17) Mia Taylor, “Japan Launches Bullet Train to Rarely Visited Region,” TravelPulse on MSN, March 15, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/japan-launches-bullet-train-to-rarely-visited-region/ar-BB1jY6F0.
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(19) Shimomae, Birth of the Shinkansen, 206.
(20) Churella, “Private Agendas and the Public Good,” 14.
(21) Anthony Perl, “Assessing the Recent Reformulation of United States Passenger Rail Policy,” Journal of Transport Geography 22 (2012): 271–81, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2012.01.010.
(22) Churella, “Private Agendas and the Public Good,” 18.
(23) Alff, “Why America Still Doesn’t Have Fast Trains.”
(24) Alff, “Why America Still Doesn’t Have Fast Trains.”
(25) Reinecke, “Moonshots to Nowhere,” 41.
(26) Peterman et al., “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” 2, 23.
(27) Perl, “Assessing the Recent Reformulation of United States Passenger Rail Policy,” 273-274.
(28) Peterman et al., “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” 7.
(29) Feng et al., “High-Speed Railways in Asia,” 30.
(30) Naoki Osaka, “JR Central’s ‘Texas Shinkansen’ Is Progressing without Us Knowing It” [in Japanese],
Toyo Keizai Online, March 23, 2020, https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/338286.
(31) Peterman et al., “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” 19.
(32) Reinecke, “Moonshots to Nowhere,” 39.
(33) “Lagging Behind,” 4.
(34) Churella, “Private Agendas and the Public Good,” 18.
(35) Sara Johnson and Euel Elliott, “All Aboard? An Analysis of Public Opinion Regarding High‐Speed Rail,” Social Science Quarterly 105, no. 3 (2024): 894–905, https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13363.
(36) David C. Nice, “Consideration of High-Speed Rail Service in the United States,” Transportation Research. Part A: General 23, no. 5 (1989): 359–65, https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-2607(89)90083-6.
(37) Peterman et al., “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” 10.
(38) Black, A Short History of Transport in Japan, 173–74.
(39) Perl, “Assessing the Recent Reformulation of United States Passenger Rail Policy,” 274.
(40) Reinecke, “Moonshots to Nowhere,” 41.
(41) Zhenhua Chen, “Culture Constraints of High-Speed Rail in the United States: A Perspective from American Exceptionalism,” Transfers 5, no. 3 (2015): 129–35, https://doi.org/10.3167/TRANS.2015.050310.
(42) Peterman et al., “High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States,” 24.
(43) Nice, “Consideration of High-Speed Rail Service in the United States,” 362.
(44) “Our Products,” Kinki Sharyo, accessed September 26, 2024, https://www.kinkisharyo.co.jp/english/ourproducts/?cat=2#product_list.
(45) “JR Central-Supported U.S. Maglev Moves Closer to Starting Construction, New Administration can also Help” [in Japanese], Nikkei, February 9, 2021, https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOFD024TL0S1A200C2000000/.
(46) William Melhado, “After a Decade of Hype, Dallas-Houston Bullet Train Developer Faces a Leadership Exodus as Land Acquisition Slows,” The Texas Tribune, August 30, 2022, https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/30/texas-high-speed-rail-dallas-houston/.
(47) Keith Barrow, “Texas Central Railway,” International Railway Journal 58, no. 12 (2018): 30–33.
(48) Mack Degeurin, “U.S. Finally Breaks Ground on Its First-Ever High-Speed Rail,” Popular Science, April 23, 2024, https://www.popsci.com/technology/high-speed-rail/.
(49) Joshua Fechter, “Texas Is Once More Flirting with Expanding Passenger Rail,” The Texas Tribune on MSN, July 23, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/texas-is-once-more-flirting-with-expanding-passenger-rail/ar-BB1qtbwT.
(50) Melhado, “After a Decade of Hype.”
(51) “JR Central-Supported Texas Shinkansen Plan Significantly Delayed, Amtrak Vice Chairman: ‘Could Potentially Enter Operation in the Early 2030s’” [in Japanese], Kyodo News via Zakzak, May 30, 2024, https://www.zakzak.co.jp/article/20240530-DTKBFHT6EJLAVBZSU76DRRL5GY/.
(52) “JR Central-Supported Texas Shinkansen Plan Significantly Delayed.”
(53) Barrow, “Texas Central Railway,” 33.
(54) Barrow, “Texas Central Railway,” 33.
(55) “Amtrak to Work with Texas Central on High Speed Rail Plan,” Railways Gazette International, August 10, 2023, https://www.railwaygazette.com/high-speed/amtrak-to-work-with-texas-central-on-high-speed-rail-plan/64695.article.
(56) “U.S., Japan Signal Support for Texas High-Speed Rail Plan,” Reuters, April 11, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-japan-signal-support-texas-high-speed-rail-plan-2024-04-11/.
(57) Johnson and Elliott, “All Aboard?” 902–4.
About JETs on Japan
JETs on Japan is a partnership between USJETAA and Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA that features JET alumni perspectives on US-Japan relations. on a variety of topics relevant to US-Japan relations. The publication elevates the awareness and visibility of JET alumni working across diverse sectors and provides a platform for JET alumni to contribute to a deeper understanding of US-Japan relations from their fields.
*Published articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of USJETAA or Sasakawa USA.
