Extension of Hokuriku Shinkansen line opens, tourism hopes boosted

FUKUI (Kyodo) — An extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line connecting Kanazawa and Tsuruga in central Japan opened on Saturday, establishing bullet train services in Fukui Prefecture for the first time and carrying hopes for a tourism boost in areas hit by the New Year’s Day earthquake.

The new section shortens travel time between Tokyo and the city of Fukui by 33 minutes to as fast as 2 hours and 51 minutes. Passengers now no longer must transfer to high-speed and limited express trains after Kanazawa.

The 125-kilometer section from Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture to Tsuruga in Fukui adds six new stations to the shinkansen line. Two are in Ishikawa — Komatsu and Kaga Onsen stations — while the other four are Awara Onsen, Fukui, Echizen-Takefu and Tsuruga stations, all in Fukui.

“I hope that more people than ever will use the shinkansen,” Kazuaki Hasegawa, president of West Japan Railway Co., said at the opening ceremony before the first Kagayaki 502 service bound for Tokyo departed Tsuruga Station.

Headed to Kanazawa, Satoshi Masuda, a 37-year-old resident of Shizuoka Prefecture, said he is traveling for pleasure and to bring cheer to areas hit by the Noto Peninsula quake in Ishikawa.

In a separate commemorative ceremony at Tokyo Station, Minami Hamabe, an Ishikawa native actress who appeared in the Oscar-winning “Godzilla Minus One,” expressed hope that people would feel closer to the Hokuriku region in central Japan and create memories during trips there.

Eizo Nishiyama, who arrived in Tokyo from the city of Fukui, said he can now easily visit the capital to see his family. “There’s no need to switch trains and the speed is so much different,” said the 63-year-old.

The Kagayaki and Hakutaka trains, which directly link Tokyo and Tsuruga, will make 14 total round trips per day.

The extension is part of a 1973 government plan to build shinkansen lines across the nation. Under the plan, the Hokuriku Shinkansen line is scheduled to eventually extend to Osaka but the start of construction has yet to be set due to delays in environmental assessments.

The last time a new section of shinkansen line opened was in September 2022 when Nishi Kyushu Shinkansen services connected Takeo-Onsen and Nagasaki in southwestern Japan.

On the Hokuriku line, the Tokyo-Nagano route first opened in 1997 to coincide with the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and this was extended to Kanazawa in 2015.

Construction of the Kanazawa-Tsuruga link began in 2012 and it was initially planned to open in spring 2023 but was delayed by one year.