Japan somehow managed to turn a bullet train into an emotional support mascot and honestly the world feels slightly less fun now that it’s ending.
No worries! It's far from the only fun train in Japan.
Japan has a mascot for almost anything, there's more than enough to fill that hole in your life.
Goodbye Kitty
Maybe next train will be painted as a giant tentacle 🐙 🤷♂️
or evangelion.
Yeah, they did do that one :)
I can see the advertising campaign for that one already: "Get on the fucking train, Shinji"
make it purple and call it the purple people eater.
8 years doesn't sound like a healthy life span for a train. What's the flaw?
The actual train is >30 years old, it was only painted like that 8 years ago. (Probably repainted a couple of times too lol)
I haven't looked it up but I would bet you it's due to fatigue limits. They probably use aluminum a lot which always fatigues no matter how light the stress (a bit like me tbh...) so anything made from aluminum gets retired after a set time period.
The same is true for jets. Each flight expands and contracts the airframe since it's a pressure vessel, and the wings can deflect a large amount too.
The 500 series Shinkansen trains were built in the 90ies so it would be more like 30 years.
500 series is absolutely the best looking, in my humble not-really-train-person opinion.
It has spent 8 years in the Hello Kitty wrap, but entered service in 1996.
🚂🚃🚃🚃
o7
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