For the Nozomi Shinkansen’s 30th birthday, you could win the gift of a free high-speed trip tailored to your desires!

Is there any symbol of triumph over adversity like the Japanese bullet train? Spoken of in awed tones across the globe, these lightning-fast trains zip across huge swathes of the earthquake-ruptured island day after day, delivering throngs of people to destinations hundreds of miles away. Their shining, streamlined designs and sturdy reputations have secured their place in people’s hearts, not only in Japan itself but with train and travel enthusiasts all over the globe.

▼ Here are some of the series 300 Shinkansen cars used on the Nozomi Shinkansen when it first ran.

The Shinkansen bullet trains are split by name, with the three operating on Central Japan Railway lines being Kodama, Hikari, and Nozomi. The Nozomi train first ran in March of 1992, meaning that when March rolls around next year the Nozomi will have been in service for a full thirty years.

The Central Japan Railway Company is preparing to celebrate early by opening up its communication channels. They’re looking for ideas for renting out individual carriages on the Nozomi (“Wish“ in English) train for private use. If your idea is accepted, then you and a group will be permitted to reserve a single carriage for your private use for a one-way trip between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka, the route that the Nozomi typically covers.

Applications for suggestions for the We’ll Make Your Nozomi Come True! project opened on December 17 and will remain open until midnight JST on January 7. You can either mail your idea in through their dedicated e-mail address or use the hashtag #のぞみ30周年 (30 years of Nozomi) to post about it on Twitter.

▼ The rules are typical “follow this account and tweet out your idea with the hashtag” fare.

https://twitter.com/nozomi30th/status/1471676580225511431

And there are some pretty cute ideas circulating already, judging from a cursory Twitter search.

▼ “I’d love to go to a disco on the Shinkansen like they did in the old days with the series 0. You could probably use decommissioned carriages for it…”

“I’d gather up a ton of my friends who are huge King Crimson [a British prog-rock band] fans. It takes about two and half hours from Tokyo to Shin Osaka, right? I’d like to hold an event where we listen to Music Is Our Friend while reminiscing about how hard King Crimson rocked when they toured Japan.”
“One carriage with five seats, multiplied by twenty rows… That’s 100 seats. We could make the most of all those seats by gathering 100 train nerds and streaming a special quiz from inside the carriage on YouTube!”
“I’d love to celebrate the friends and family who have supported me for all these years by taking them with me on a trip in a space like that.”
“I wanna force the Nozomi to stop at Hamamatsu!” [A station in Shizuoka that is not on the Nozomi line]

Naturally, some commenters expressed concern about traveling at all in the global pandemic. As creative as Central Japan Rail may be, in wanting to entertain the wishes and desires of the applicants, we doubt they have a way to guarantee absolute health and zero transmission during their journey, so do keep that in mind if you do send in a suggestion.

Source: Automotive Media Response via Hachima Kikou
Top image: Wikimedia Commons/BradBeattie
Insert image: Wikimedia Commons/Peter Broster
● Want to hear about SoraNews24’s latest articles as soon as they’re published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!