Future Trains | 未来鉄道

Why is it always so exciting to imagine, talk about, or hear about the future we haven't seen yet?

When I was small, I had a kids' encyclopedia of railways. In the future section of the encyclopedia, there were illustrations of future transportation systems – air-floating monorail trains, linear motor trains, tubes that can transport freight in the deep underground.... They facinated and thrilled me a lot.

It's been more than a decade since Japanese government privatised its national railways company and divided the national company into 7 independent private companies. They are JR Kyushu, JR Shikoku, JR West, JR Central, JR East, JR Hokkaido, and JR Freight.

Even after privatising, those companies didn't stop investing money to develop their technologies relating to railway tracks.

JR Hokkaido
> Dual Mode Vehicle

JR Central
> Liner Motor Car

JR East
> Fuel Cell Train

Investing money to make profits or spreading better technology around the world is a quite good idea, I think.

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僕の日本語ニュースのソースは、気付いてる人が多いと思うけれど、Asahi.com だけでとても偏っていますね。いつも読むニュースサイトから、未来鉄道なる（個人的に・笑）興味深い記事の題。日本の鉄道技術や技術の開発につぎ込むお金の額など驚かされる事がたくさんあって読んだり写真をみて楽しみました。こんな鉄道が世界のあちこちで見られたらいいのになと思います。