Tsubame (train)

Tsubame (Japanese燕, " Swallow" ) was an express train of the Japanese Ministry of Railways, later the state railway, between Kanto and Kansai on the Tōkaidō Main Line, the then most important modern transport link between East and West Japan. He was so before the construction of the Shinkansen one of the main means of transport in the country.

The first Tsubame began operation in 1930 as chō - Tokkyu (超 特急, " Super - Special - Express" ) between Tokyo and Kobe, needed for the entire route of the train at an average speed of 67.5 km / h nine hours was so but had never associated faster than the Fuji, the Tōkyō with Osaka ( from 1943 until after Kyūshū, later than night train until 2009 ). In 1937, the Schwesterzug Kamome on the same route on the operation.

After the end of the Pacific War drove off in 1949 by the now independent state railway again an express train from Tōkyō to Osaka, initially under the name Heiwa (へいわ, "peace" ), already from 1950 but again as Tsubame ( henceforth but in hiragana letters つばめ). As of 1950 ( " pigeon " is the name of an express train of the South Manchurian Railway between Dairen / Dalian and Choshun / Changchunはと, before the war ) took on the same stretch of Schwesterzug Hato its operation on. In 1956, when the entire Tōkaidō Main Line was electrified, the Tsubame took seven hours and 35 minutes from Tōkyō to Osaka. The journey continued to decline in the following years through the use of new Expresszugbaureihen. Starting in 1962, as well as the San'yo Main Line was electrified to Hiroshima, the Tsubame drove the entire 900 km route from Tōkyō to Hiroshima.

Although it was clear by the construction of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen Tsubame the loss of importance, however, the " Swallow" had established itself as a symbol of Japanese National Railways. So played the state railway-owned baseball team since 1950 as Kokutetsu Swallows, and state railway coaches took a swallow as a logo. The train was moved to the opening of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen to secondary route from Shin- Osaka to Hakata, which he used to in the 1970s, this route through the San'yo Shinkansen received a high-speed connection: 1975 ended the story of Tsubame ( and Hato ) in the service of the state railway.

Resume on the JR Kyushu

The JR Kyushu, one of the private successor of the state railway, called some of their Express compounds also Tsubame, initially an express train of the Kagoshima Main Line, from the opening of the first section of the Kyushu Shinkansen in 2004 subsequent Express connection, since 2011, the slowest, holding at each station line of the Kyushu Shinkansen between Hakata and Kagoshima.