The second Seikan Tunnel plan: Perfect solution to improve Shinkansen speed

[@HimanshuShekhar1]

I am very happy to see you are gaining more subscribers. I subscribed a few months back and I think you have one of the best channel for people who are fan of Japanese Rail system. Thank you, domo arigato gozaimashita !

[@JPRailcom]

Thanks for your support!!!

[@japanesetrainandtravel6168]

I agree. The Hokkaido Shinkansen is already bleeding money isn’t it?

[@overthecounterbeanie]

Given the reducing population of Hokkaido, I don't think this makes much economic sense. But it might be a good idea to have an alternative to the Seikan Tunnel.

[@TonboIV]

That's true, but it looks like freight will be the main traffic in this tunnel, and the market for food produced in Hokkaido should still be huge. If transportation costs go down, it may also allow agriculture to grow, possibly leading to more people moving there for work.

[@ABCantonese]

@@TonboIV You will have a hard time convincing people to become farmers, especially in the snow.

[@lars7935]

But why not build a new dual line railway? You could use either the new one or the old one to carry Shinkansen services and the other one could carry the freight traffic and cars trains like the channel tunnel between UK and France.

[@namele55777]

what about building the 2nd tunnel on the eastern neck of the Tsugaru straits, linking Mutsu, Oma, up to Shiokubi and Hakodate? That would take some pressure off the congested western neck and develop some of the quieter regions in the east. also, instead of having self-driving cars or vehicles loaded onto self-driving autonomous platforms, why not just convert the space into 2 more conventional railway lines? we can have cars/lorries loaded onto trains like in the channel tunnel, and similarly collect tolls from them. trains are more flexible as we can reduce the numbers of vehicle-carrying carriages during periods of low vehicular traffic (eg. during late night or early morning), and attach more standard freight cars onto the same train. during the day, we can just reverse this process. If these trains run on electricity, it will cut down on the emissions produced by petrol/diesel powered vehicles running in the tunnel, and reduce chances of such vehicles catching fire too.

[@JPRailcom]

When the current Seikan Tunnel was built, the route which you mentioned from Oma to Hakodate was also considered. However, although the route is short, the water depth is deeper than the current route, and it was found that tunnel excavation is geologically difficult, so the current route was selected. In the second Seikan Tunnel, vehicles equipped with an automatic driving system basically pass through, and it is estimated that 90% of vehicles will be equipped with the system in the plan. The car train plan has been around for a long time, and some freight cars can carry cars. However, this has not been achieved due to the need for equipment to load cars and the increased time required for freight trains.

[@00crashtest]

@@JPRailcom Just lay an immersed tube.

[@00crashtest]

2.5% is quite steep for freight trains. Many helper locomotives would be needed to push the long freight trains out of the tunnel. Even the railroad over the Donner Pass in California is not that steep, at 2.2%. Also, a single track seems to be problematic, as the derailment of a 2km-long freight train will grind the entire freight network to a halt for months because it will be difficult to extract the wreckage. The Channel Tunnel already sometimes has problems with lorries catching fire on their Euroshuttle despite having 2 tracks in separate tunnels with crossovers within the undersea portion.

[@lars7935]

In Europe freight trains can easily run on 2.5% gradient. In Germany there is a project to let shorter freight trains run on high speed lines at night. These have up to 4% gradient.

[@TonboIV]

@@lars7935 It's really more of a U.S. problem with grades, because in North America huge and very long freight trains are used that dwarf anything in a European or Japanese system, and modern American rail operators are very cheap these days, neglecting infrastructure, not caring for their equipment, and dispatching the absolute minimum of locomotives and crews for very long trains.

[@FNicholas2000]

Does this mean the Train-On-Train concept might not follow through? The dedicated Shinkansen will be much more efficient than a shared Freight-HSR line.

[@JPRailcom]

It has been discontinued. This is because the development cost is too high and it is unlikely to be profitable.

[@mango_8102]

If both the original seikan tunnel and the new one only have one line for freight, how can there be increased freight capacity?

[@hamanakohamaneko7028]

No. The Freight trains and shinkansen share both tracks, not one by one. Freight train separation will give full control of the schedule without the worry of a faster shinkansen from behind.

[@mango_8102]

@@hamanakohamaneko7028 I see thanks!

[@lewisho8114]

Why not build it from the peninsula at the right side of Aomori prefecture directly to Hakodate

[@JPRailcom]

When the Seikan Tunnel was constructed, the two were compared, but the western route was selected because the water depth on the east side was rather deep and it was geologically difficult to excavate.

[@ABCantonese]

Would have been my thought as well. You can have Tohoku ShKS continue to Aomori but start the Hokkaido ShKS in Hachinobe. Sounds crazy when you are low on cash. But yes, technical difficulty alone is reason enough.

[@magnustan841]

Hmmm, 1 trillion yen.... As with most mega construction projects like this, they often run over budget, so the second tunnel may end up costing a lot more than 1 trillion yen. Also, say the Shinkansen can run at 320km/h in the tunnel, overall time saving will be 15-20mins. Is that 1 trillion yen worth 15-20mins? The Tohoku Shinkansen is already undergoing renovations to run 320km/h trains north of Morioka, up from 260km/h and even if JR managed to cut travel time between Tokyo and Sapporo to 5 hours, I’m not sure if the market share for trains over flights will be as great as they would like.

[@hamanakohamaneko7028]

That's not the only thing. The biggest change actually comes from the ALFA-X running at 360km/h, it may be enough to get like 40% of the share, which doesn't seem much but given the high demand between Tokyo and Hokkaido, Not to mention Tokyo to Hakodate, it's a lot of passengers. Even the Nozomi which takes 5 hours from Tokyo to Hakata, It gets 10% of the share which is still a lot.

[@Melchior171]

In terms of cost, I totally agree - 720bn - ~1 trillion yen seems an underestimate... I suspect the actual cost would be much higher. Also, I think the freight rail opportunity is probably considered secondary to the ability to a road transport option for both freight and personal vehicles between Honshu and Hokkaido that will significantly reduce travel times and generate toll revenue. I don't think you could possibly try to rationalise the project economically if the primary benefit were 'speeding up the Shinkansen' especially where, as you say, there will still be strong competition from air travel.

[@magnustan841]

@@Melchior171 Let’s not forget the companies that operates the ferries, if the second tunnel is built, they go out of business, what’s gonna happen then. So, the first goal is maximising utilisation of the existing tunnel. Only when the existing tunnel is at capacity should JAPIC, JR and the government consider a second tunnel. Or better still, make use of the last few Shinkansen services everyday, that don’t see a lot of passengers, to carry freight.

[@TonboIV]

@@magnustan841 The problem of the Seikan tunnel is not capacity. It's the mixed traffic slowing down the Shinkasen, and the Shinkansen will only attract more ridership if it can be sped up. Waiting to do something to speed it up until after it gets more traffic is backwards. Likewise freight won't increase much until after the costs are lowered, which would require building the new tunnel first. Putting freight on the Shinkansen is also impractical since the trains aren't built to carry heavy loads (passengers are very light compared to the space they use up) and most freight is containerized these days. I did read a Japanese article about a "freight Shinkansen" proposal, meaning a purpose built high speed train for carrying containers through the Seikan tunnel, but this requires a large transhipment yard to move the containers on and off the trains, which will be equivalent to a small seaport. The cost is significant (though FAR lower than a second tunnel), and it would probably result in higher shipping costs than the current system in which freight trains just drive through the tunnel. Stakeholders apparently don't have any interest in the idea and prefer the "train-on-train" concept in which a whole narrow gauge train is driven INSIDE a hollow high speed shuttle train. The cost involved is higher, but it presents less inconvenience for freight users. Even that proposal would only be advantageous for Shinkansen travel times and would be nothing but an inconvenience for freight users. A second tunnel has the potential to bring advantages to both freight and passenger use, which may be worth the cost, particularly if the larger social and economic effects on the whole society are considered.

[@ABCantonese]

Wait, the second tunnel is being built near the 1st, and it will cost 720 billion, for 31km. There are railroads nearby already, but the cost to connect them, which is on the surface and much less than 31km, is 150 million??? That makes the tunnel look very cheap.

[@anirudhkulkarni3108]

Alfa-x Shinkansen will be in service in 2031.But why so many years for testing one train ,2-3 years are enough.Please explain

[@JPRailcom]

Experiments with ALFA-X are scheduled for March 2022. After this experiment, the development of commercial vehicles will begin. It has taken two years for the ALFA-X to appear after the plan was announced. Prototypes of commercial vehicles will be available as early as 2024. From there, a test run on a commercial vehicle will take place again, so even if everything goes well, it will be 2027. After that, the production of commercial vehicles will start, so I think it will be about this schedule in time for the opening of Sapporo on the Hokkaido Shinkansen in 2031.

[@ondrejsedlak4935]

Thorough testing of a new type of train is critical for safety. Take the example of the Wenzhou train collision, during which 40 people were killed. The entire Chinese high speed rail network and rolling stock have been rushed into service, ignoring safety for the prestige of being first to have regular services running at 350 km/h. Fortunately in that instance, the train was running at well below its top speed, otherwise it could have been much worse. And in the end, they slowed the trains back down to 300 km/h, due to "safety concerns". Testing is absolutely necessary and if it means it will take 10 years to ensure that no one is hurt, then so be it. Edit: The French AGV also underwent lengthy tests before it was entered into service, beginning in 2001 with prototypes and finally entering service the following decade. I'm sorry but your question ignores common sense and if you want to ride on a train designed for 360km/h regular service speeds that only had 2-3 years of testing, then be my guest. I'll watch from veeeeeery far away.

[@Token_Nerd]

@@ondrejsedlak4935 360 km/h testing has been occurring for almost 2 decades. The Fastec 360 first proposed this. The design on the train at the time failed to pass noise/air pressure gradient tests in tunnels due to the large tunnel boom that occurred. Track geometry was always designed for 360 km/h on the Tohoku shinkansen, so that's not really a concern, it's more of the tunnel boom and noise concerns that are at play.

[@ondrejsedlak4935]

@@Token_Nerd And what exactly is your point? That simply because we've been testing this kind of thing over 20 years that we should now stop and just rush something potentially deadly into service because some people want it now? I personally trust the engineers and if they say we need more testing, then I trust them on that. Don't forget technologies evolve, different materials are introduced, etc. All that requires new ways of testing, stressing the ever-loving crap out of it until they are 1000% certain this thing won't disintegrate before it carries passengers. Train disasters in Japan have an extremely profound effect on the populace, such as the Amagasaki disaster, which caused a great number of people to lose confidence in JR, from which they still haven't fully recovered. That one was a commuter train so imagine the fallout from any type of disaster in a shinkansen line. Same thing happened in Germany with the ICE crash, which caused people to run away from DB for years and years, until they were able to regain the public confidence. This Amazon "I need it right now" mentality is something that can never be allowed to influence engineering and safety. If foolish statements like this were taken seriously by engineers, we'd have no end of the Chinese and ICE disasters.

[@TonboIV]

@@Token_Nerd Besides all the good reasons mentioned by Ondrej for not rushing things, no-one needs it right now in the first place. The Tokyo to Hakodate run takes about 4 hours, which is fast enough to be competitive, and anyway it's not a high demand route because there's hardly anything in Hakodate. Tokyo to Aomori is about 3 hours, so speeding that up won't produce much extra demand, and Aomori is small anyway. The real prize in the north is Sapporo, and they will need those higher speeds to have any chance of competing with the airliners for Tokyo to Sapporo, but that route won't open until 2030 at least, so there's little purpose in speeding up service before that.

[@linuxman7777]

It is definitely not worth it. As the demand just won't be there. For Passengers, most will fly to hokkaido or if they are a JR pass holder use the Hayabusa. As for the Freight, Trucks are far less efficient than Trains or Boats, so not much will be gained. Also looking at Japan's Freight Trains compared to America's JR frieight could be doing more to utilize their track and use longer trains. Although I know diesel trains are banned in the current seikan tunnel, so the trains likely cannot pull as much freight.

[@TonboIV]

Speeding up passenger rail tends to have a large impact on ridership, and if the Shinaksen is fast enough to Sapporo, it could take away a large portion of the market from the airlines. JR Hokkaido is depending on doing so, because their current financial situation is bleak. They need the Hokkaido Shinkansen to be their cash cow. No question that rail is the most efficient way to move things overland, but if the freight has to leave its origin on a truck, and arrive at the destination on a truck, then loading it onto a train or boat presents an inconvenience which ads to the cost, and doesn't provide any return advantage if you put it right back onto a truck again after 50 km, so I could imagine a road tunnel lowering freight costs. Also, electric trains can usually pull more weight than diesels. Both types are using the same traction motors, but the electric trains gets power from a pantograph instead of carrying a generator, so they can have more power available. I suspect that American sized trains aren't practical in Japan due to the more difficult topography and use of narrow gauge for most of their railways. Shorter trains are also probably more sensible in a smaller country with shorter travel distances simply because the cost and inconvenience of assembling bigger trains is paid back over longer distances, so with a shorter trip, trains should naturally trend smaller.

[@jayasuriyas2604]

There are powerful electrical locomotives with 12000hp. They can be used for freight.

Oh God, autonomous cars yet again.... I hoped Japan can come up with a better solution than this.