Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (August 30) travelled from Tokyo to Sendai aboard an iconic Shinkansen, colloquially known in English as “bullet train”.In a world where high-speed trains are not the rarity they once were, Japan’s Shinkansen stands out for its speed, efficiency and unique design inspired by nature.Reached Sendai. Travelled with PM Ishiba to this city on the Shinkansen.@shigeruishiba pic.twitter.com/qBc4bU1Pdt— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 30, 2025Lifeline of JapanShinkansen in Japanese means “new trunk line”: the word is used to describe both the high-speed rail network as a whole and the trains themselves. The term “bullet train” comes from the name given to the Shinkansens in the 1930s, while it was still in the planning stage.The original Shinkansen, which began services in 1964, connected Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, three of Japan’s largest cities. Today, the Shinkansen run across the length of Japan, from the northernmost island of Hokkaido to the southernmost Kyushu.Depending on the line, maximum operating speeds range from 275 km/h to 320 km/h. The Nozomi (“wish”) trains, the fastest in the Shinkansen network, cover the 515 km between Tokyo and Osaka in 2 hours 21 minutes, which amounts to an average speed of almost 220 km/hour. Shinkansen Map (as of 2024). Wikimedia Commons(For context, the Vande Bharat trains, the fastest in India, run at average speeds of well under 100 km/h).This speed makes the Shinkansen competitive with domestic air travel, and thus the preferred choice for most people travelling within Japan. Over the years, the Shinkansen has brought what were once faraway places in Japan closer together.“In 1889, the journey time from Tokyo to Osaka was 16 and a half hours by train — better than the two to three weeks it had taken on foot only a few years earlier. By 1965, it was just three hours and 10 minutes via the Shinkansen,” a report by CNN said.Story continues below this adTale of biomimicryThe Shinkansen is an engineering marvel. These high speeds are made possible by extremely sophisticated routing (Shinkansen tracks never intersect with slower, conventional lines), an advanced electrical and signals system, specially-constructed train tracks, and of course, the trains themselves.Much can be written about what makes Shinkansen the world’s best high-speed trains — the network has not reported a single passenger fatality in its 60 years of operation — one design decision is particularly fascinating.In their early years of operation, Shinkansens had a particular problem which railway engineers had never faced before: sound. The trains were running so fast that they would push air in front of them while entering a tunnel, compressing this air rapidly and creating a shockwave that would exit the tunnel with a deafening sonic boom.This was a problem for the densely-populated Japan: these booms were not only an annoyance for citizens, they could also damage windows and other fragile objects.Story continues below this adAlso Read | These 5 Vande Bharat Express trains run at 130 kmph speed on entire route – full listOne solution would be to slow the train down. Perhaps trains were not meant to be as fast as the Shinkansen were. But an engineer by the name of Eiji Nakatsu had other ideas. He noticed that the humble kingfisher, found commonly across Napan, produced very little splash when diving into water to catch prey.Nakatsu surmised that the bird’s ability to move from one medium (air) to another (water) so smoothly was due to the shape of its beak, which is long, narrow, and highly streamlined. And thus was born the now-iconic Shinkansen design.The trains were redesigned to mimic the kingfisher’s beak, which significantly reduced the air pressure changes and minimised the sonic boom effect. The design also improved the Shinkansens’ speed and energy efficiency.“Nakatsu’s case is a fascinating example of biomimicry, the design movement pioneered by biologist and writer Janine Benyus. It’s the idea that big challenges in design, engineering, and sustainability have often been solved before through 3.8 billion years of evolution on earth. We just have to go out and find them,” one video on the subject by Vox said.