400 Series Shinkansen

History

The fleet of twelve six-car sets entered service on Tsubasa Shinkansen services from 1 July 1992. All sets were lengthened to seven cars between November and December 1995 by inserting a new type 429 trailer car as car 15.

Withdrawals began in December 2008 with set L1. The entire fleet was scheduled to be withdrawn by summer 2009 and replaced by E3-2000 series trains, but set L3 remained in service until 18 April 2010, marking 18 years of service. The first eleven withdrawn sets were cut up at Sendai General Depot; one Green car (411-3) of set L3 was preserved at the Railway Museum in Omiya, Saitama Prefecture.

Pre-series set

The pre-production train, known as set S4, arrived in October 1990 and was shown to the press on the 26th of that month. This six-car formation had every car powered. It used three kinds of bolsterless bogies: DT9028 on cars 1 and 3, DT9029 on cars 2 and 4, and DT9030 on cars 5 and 6. The Green car included televisions built into the seat backs, a detail left out of later production models.

Tokyu Car Corporation built cars 1 and 2, Hitachi built cars 3 and 4, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries built cars 5 and 6. Pantographs were fitted to cars 12 and 14. Testing started on the Ōu Main Line on 14 November 1990. On 26 March 1991, set S4 broke the Japanese speed record at 336 km/h on the Jōetsu Shinkansen inside the Yuzawa Tunnel.

It set another record of 345 km/h on the same stretch on 19 September 1991. The pre-series set was later upgraded to match production standards and was redesignated set L1 on 29 June 1992.

Design

The 400 series was originally painted medium silver-grey with a darker roof and darkened areas around the cab windows and underframe. Between 1999 and 2001, the fleet was refurbished and repainted with a revised livery: a higher area of dark bluish-grey on the lower body rising to just below the side windows, separated from the silver-grey upper body by a green stripe, and the dark grey treatment on the roof and cab windows was removed. Because the Yamagata Shinkansen route retained the original loading gauge, the 400 series had a narrower cross-section, earning the mini-Shinkansen designation.

A retractable step flipped up from beneath the doors to bridge the platform gap at stations on purpose-built high-speed lines. Ordinary-class cars had 2+2 abreast seating instead of the usual 3+2; Green cars had 2+1 abreast seating instead of 2+2. Seat pitch was 1160 mm in Green class (car 11), 980 mm in reserved-seating cars (cars 12–15), and 910 mm in non-reserved cars (cars 16 and 17). During the 1999–2001 refurbishment, new moquette seat coverings were installed: blue in Green cars, red in reserved-seating cars, and turquoise in non-reserved cars.