Boku wa shinkansen otaku da… “I am a bullet train nerd”. After first visiting Japan in 2009 and riding shinkansen trains for 3 weeks on a JR Pass, I’ve been hooked. So I was excited to hear that you can now ride on these shiny new trains using the JR Pass.

E5 & E6 Series Shinkansen

E5 Series Hayabusa (green) and E6 Series Super Komachi (red)

This photo is by HDR artist and photographer uemii via Flickr.

These two bullet trains are often coupled together. The green E5 Series Hayabusa make up cars 1 to 10 and the red E6 Series Super Komachi make up cars 11 to 17 of the set. Most other shinkansen train sets, such as the N700 Series Shinkansen, are 16 cars long.

E5 Series Hayabusa Shinkansen (green bullet train)

This train started operation in March 2011. Running on the Tōhoku Shinkansen line, from Tōkyō to Aomori in the north of Japan, just south of Hokkaidō.

E6 Series Super Komachi Shinkansen (red bullet train)

This train started operation in March 2013 and runs on both the Tōhoku Shinkansen and Akita Shinkansen lines. Akita is on the north-west coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu.

Read more about traveling on Japan’s bullet trains and the JR Pass.