
Japan's Brand New Bullet Train Is Earthquake-Proof - prostoalex
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a33372664/japan-new-bullet-train-shinkansen-earthquakes/
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benbristow
Interestingly the Japanese shinkansen system has seismic detectors all over
the route. If there's enough activity detected then it can automatically stop
all trains. Clever stuff.

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kalleboo
Japan _as a country_ has seismic detectors all over.

These are fed into a centralized earthquake early warning system that stops
not only Shinkansen, but other trains, elevators, alerts surgeons in
hospitals, sends out broadcast push notifications to phones, etc. The system
is so fast that the notifications arrive to areas beyond the epicenter before
the seismic waves themselves, giving people and devices precious seconds to
prepare [0]

Compare the number of seismographs in Japan
[https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/image/earth-
fig02.pn...](https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/Activities/image/earth-fig02.png)

To California (only the green ones exist, blue are proposals)
[https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/35/2018/10/CA_...](https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-
content/uploads/sites/35/2018/10/CA_EERStation_Status_September2018.jpg)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_\(Japan\))

~~~
shalmanese
> The system is so fast that the notifications arrive to areas beyond the
> epicenter before the seismic waves themselves, giving people and devices
> precious seconds to prepare

TBF, even Twitter is a "notification system fast enough to arrive in areas
before the seismic wave". There's been numerous reports of twitter users
seeing tweets about an earthquake before experiencing the shock wave.

Building a system that can do that reliably is an engineering feat but we're
talking on the order of 10s of seconds, not milliseconds.

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jamestimmins
Standing in a train station as a Shinkansen roars through without stopping was
one of the most exhilarating things I've experienced. Worth the trip to Japan
just for that alone.

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anadem
That must be a real buzz. As a kid my biggest thrill was watching the Mallard
[0] steam train rush through our small station on the London-Edinburgh main
line at about 100 mph. [0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard)

~~~
saagarjha
And here I am amused by Caltrain's Baby Bullets doing the same thing…

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MarkSweep
In fairness, the Caltrain is double-decker to the shinkansen’s single decker.
It is further higher because the Caltrain platforms are less elevated. You can
usually get closer to a fast moving Caltrain, as most stations are double
tracked (many Shinkansen stations have sidings for loading trains and the
passing trains are on interior tracks) And the diesel-electric engine makes an
impressive rumble.

I personally think Caltrain still ranks well in terms of an impressive
experience watching it pass.

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supernova87a
The article asks "why can't we have one?"

Well, when you can get political, social, and financial factors in the US to
give input to <xyz> rail system that such a kind of train service is desired
and worth the cost/benefit valued by those parties, then we'll have it.

Otherwise, we're stuck with Amtrak for the moment.

~~~
supportlocal4h
I recently did a little research on traveling from the US southwest to the US
midwest. I wanted to avoid the hostility of US commercial air travel and was
looking at alternatives to driving a car. Driving a car was going to be a two
day ordeal with a hotel stop somewhere.

Turns out driving a car across the US is faster than Amtrak, even with an
overnight stop at a hotel.

AZ -> IL:

    
    
      26 hours by car + 8 hour hotel stay
    
      35 hour train ride.
    
      $120-150 gas + $100 hotel
    
      $600 train ticket
    

Of course a plane ticket is < $200 and just a handful of hours. I wouldn't
expect Amtrak to compete with those. But if you can't compete with a Ford
Fusion over an 1800 mile journey...

~~~
mschuster91
It's only cheaper because you're ignoring wear and tear (aka maintenance),
depreciation and insurance in your calculation. Not to mention it's incredibly
unsafe to do a 26h ride in two days instead of three - you _don 't_ want to do
a 13h ride, so realistically you're looking at two days of some motel to stay
over night.

For what it's worth a proper high speed train could do a 10 hour run at
300-350 km/h. Not exactly the ~900 km/h of your typical airplane, but at least
you 'll have a decent seat over the travel time.

~~~
wenc
A 10-13h drive (with breaks) on a modern (say > 2009) car is surprisingly non-
strenuous on US interstates. I've done it and it was not onerous. The driving
experience in the U.S. is markedly different from other countries --
interstates are wide and relatively smooth-flowing outside major cities, and
rest stops are plentiful.

To most Europeans a >10h drive sounds excessive, and that might be the case in
certain parts of Europe, but the U.S. is (perhaps unfortunately, from an
environmental perspective) built around the automobile, and the driving
experience here is somehow different (i.e. easier).

I've driven in Germany and while I enjoyed spending hours cruising on the
Autobahn (A-8), parts of the journey involved driving on tiny, narrow roads in
small towns. Those segments were frustrating. I haven't yet tried it, but I
don't think I'd be able to drive > 5 hours in Europe (but I could be wrong).

~~~
myopenid4
I find the more frustrating part of driving on the Autobahn being the constant
changes in speed limit. You cant just cruise 170kmh all the way, since theres
so many construction along the way plus the random 90kmh zone here and there.

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ve55
Related, this is a great post by patio11 on one of the last large Japanese
earthquakes and how it was handled by various systems:
[https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-
the...](https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-
earthquake/)

~~~
knolax
The secret whitepaper guy? No thanks.

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jcrawfordor
A project to implement a similar earthquake early warning system for the
earthquake-prone west coast of the united states has faced a lot of difficulty
in obtaining funding but is slowly making progress. They are currently
developing alert communication systems and integrations with automated
controls, and have complete sensor networks for just a few areas.

[https://www.shakealert.org/](https://www.shakealert.org/)

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tus88
Misleading title. Retorted.

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mnky9800n
The Japanese also thought a very large magnitude earthquake couldn't happen in
the tohoku region. Never say never.

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fomine3
The earthquake was not expected well but not thought as couldn't happen.

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mnky9800n
No the seismic hazard models were not designed to account for a rupture across
all the zones. The earthquake was not anticipated.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00401...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0040195112003721)

~~~
fomine3
Not anticipated but it not means thought as couldn't happen. Most earthquakes
are not well anticipated. I also doubt whether the model useful.

