Shinkyuko

The Shinkyuko (Yashiman: 新急行, lit. new express line) is a network of high-speed railways lines in Yamatai. The Shinkyuko was initially built to aid economic growth and development across the nation by connecting distance regions of Yamatai with economic hubs. Beyond long-distance travel, some sections around and within the largest metropolitan areas are also used as a commuter rail network. The Shinkyuko lines are operated by four partially-privatised companies under the state-owned Yamatai National Railway Group.

In 50 years of history, with over 10 billion passengers carried, there has only been a single train accident on the Shinkyuko resulting in fatalities, the 2003 North-East Shinkyuko Disaster, which was caused by foreign terrorist hackers and resulted in 23 deaths.

The Shinkyuko system currently consists of 2,764,6 km of lines with maximum speeds of 240–320 km/h, 283.5 km of Mini-Shinkyuko lines with a maximum speed of 130 km/h, and 10.3 km of spur lines with Shinkyuko services. The network currently links most major cities throughout the Naichi archipelago. The maximum operating speed is 320 km/h on a 387.5 km section of the Eastern Line. Test runs have reached 443 km/h for conventional rail in 1996, and up to a world record 603 km/h for an experimental Magnetic levitation train in April 2015.

The Shinkyuko Eastern Line, connecting Niihama, Yamato and Heian, three of Yamatai's largest cities, is one of the world's busiest high-speed rail lines. In the one-year period preceding March 2017, it carried 159 million passengers, and since its opening in 1972, it has transported more than 5.6 billion total passengers. The service on the line operates much larger trains and at higher frequency than most other high speed lines in the world. At peak times, the line carries up to thirteen trains per hour in each direction with sixteen cars each (1,323-seat capacity and occasionally additional standing passengers) with a minimum headway of three minutes between trains.

History
Prior to the Endwar, plans were made by the Yamatai Imperial Army to create a new nationwide rail system to improve military logistics and the movement of materials to increase industrial output. Major studies were carried out by the Army Engineering Corps and a plan to create a high-speed express line linking Niihama and Mitakishima was approved, with construction beginning in 1936. Though several tunnels were excavated and a bridge was built, construction on the line was halted in 1944 due to the deteriorating war situation.

The modern Shinkyuko network was the brainchild of rail pioneer Ichioka Ayako, who endeavoured to restart work on the nationwide express rail system in order to better connect northern Oshima with the heavily-developed and populous south and east. The first line of the ambitious project to be completed was the South-West Shinkyuko in 1964, which connected Niihama, Mitakishima, and Okayama, building on the partially-completed Imperial Army line that had not been touched in two decades. The second Shinkyuko line was the Eastern Shinkyuko, constructed between 1967 and 1972, which linked Niihama with Yamato and Heian.