An Autumn of Patient Waiting | Yasuo Takagi (Dean, Graduate School of Health Management)

2010.11.04

On Saturday, December 4, at the end of the year, the Tohoku Shinkansen line will open the section between Hachinohe and Shin-Aomori stations, finally completing the entire line in its 29th year since its initial opening in June 1982. For someone like me who spent four years in the Tohoku region, in Sendai, this is a deeply moving event, and I am already planning a trip to a hot spring in Aomori during the winter break. I fondly recall that back in 1979, it took eight hours by limited express train to travel from Noheji Station in Aomori, at the entrance to the Shimokita Peninsula, to Ueno Station in Tokyo, with Sendai Station in Miyagi Prefecture being right at the four-hour midpoint. The Shinkansen will reduce this journey to about three and a half hours, and it's only natural to want to experience it.

The Tohoku Shinkansen opened between Omiya and Morioka stations in June 1982, about 20 years after the Tokaido Shinkansen, which opened in October 1964. The section between Omiya and Ueno stations was connected three years later in March 1985. It was not until June 1991, ten years after the Omiya opening, that the 3.6 km section between Tokyo and Ueno stations was completed, allowing trains to run into Tokyo Station.

Meanwhile, the Tokaido Shinkansen, under the slogan "Hikari heads west," opened the section between Shin-Osaka and Okayama in March 1972. In March 1975, the line was extended from Okayama to Hakata, conquering the western part of Honshu and crossing into Kyushu. The Tohoku Shinkansen will finally reach Shin-Aomori at the end of this year, a delay of 35 years compared to the opening of the Hakata extension.

In contrast to the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines, which started as a symbol of Japan's high-growth economy and extended to Hakata Station in just over a decade on that momentum, the Tohoku Shinkansen only managed to reach Tokyo Station in 1991 after the bubble economy burst, taking 30 years to reach the northern end of Honshu. This is truly symbolic of the delay in social infrastructure development in the Tohoku region, a sentiment of long, patient waiting.

Incidentally, when the Tohoku Shinkansen began services to Tokyo Station, through-services with the Tokaido Shinkansen, such as trains from Shin-Osaka to Sendai, were considered. However, these plans were shelved after it was found that over 90 percent of passengers on both lines would disembark at Tokyo Station. This just goes to show the immense drawing power of Tokyo.

Now, with the full opening of the Tohoku Shinkansen, we hope to see how the Tohoku region will change and to bring a new wind of change ourselves. For the baby boomer generation, who once arrived at Ueno Station on overnight trains, the closer proximity to their hometowns will allow for deeper connections. I, too, am looking forward to soaking in a hot spring with old friends from the north at Tsuta Onsen in Aomori, the setting of Takuro Yoshida's song "Tabi no Yado."

(Posted: 2010/11/04)