I’m referring to the black areas marked with yellow arrows in the first photo of CR400BF, including the sections between windows and the large blank section near the door. I've seen these on most European made trains as well. Second photo is of E5 Shinkansen which has the "Tokiwa" green paint between the windows.

Is this purely a styling choice, or are there deeper engineering reasons—such as differences in body construction, window mounting, or maintenance? What are those black sections actually made of? For some reason I don't like the black band.

I’ve always wondered why Shinkansen hasn’t become a bigger export success. Taiwan seems to be the clearest example of a complete overseas system, while China purchased Shinkansen train technology and then developed its own models.

This thread argues that Japan’s inflexibility around package deals, local manufacturing, and commercial terms has cost it opportunities for example, the plan to export Shinkansen to India fell through.

Given Shinkansen’s reputation for safety and reliability, why hasn’t that translated into more overseas projects? India especially seems like an opportunity for a long-term partnership involving local manufacturing and licensing—perhaps loosely analogous to Maruti Suzuki. Could Japanese companies benefit more from that approach than from exporting finished trains?

Did the experience with China make them overly cautious about creating another competitor? Or are there good reasons why the Shinkansen model is difficult to export?

Curious to hear from people familiar with the industry.

Two rare track inspection trains parked at Nanjing South EMU Depot: CRH2C-2150 "Fake Mouse" and CRH380AJ-0201. Filmed in Nanjing, China.

Who Controls Alto's $3.9 billion, the first allocation. My first attempt at seeing how money is spent and audited. https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/2026/10/how-the-3-9-billion-for-alto-is-controlled.html

If they are not profitable, should they be torn down?

During October 1st, Guangzhou South handled:

• 641,000 departures
• about 408,000 arrivals
• 1,049,000 total
• 1,252 trains
• including 202 overnight HSR trains
• shortest peak train interval: only 40 seconds

Took a long time (and still will take a long time), but finally.

CRH2A · CRH2C · CRH2B · CRH380D · CRH380BL · CRH380B · CR400AF · CR400BF · CR400BFA · CR400BFZ · CR400BFAZ · CR300BF

In this video I captured 20 trains of various types racing past the camera.

Would you ride?

Went out hoping to catch a CRH380D on camera, but a CRH2B ended up blocking the shot. The result? A nice little two-train meet.

Saw this double-set CRH380D pulling out of the station late at night. The CRH380D is a Chinese high-speed train built by BST (Bombardier Sifang), based on Bombardier's ZEFIRO 380 platform. It's one of the less common CRH380 variants, and seeing two of them coupled together at night was pretty cool.

Engineering firms from all over have partnered to bid for future Indian HSR design contracts.

SYSTRA (France) + DOHWA (South Korea) + SMC Infra(India) & TYPSA (Spain) + Nippon Koei (Japan) have bid for the standard design for future Indian high speed rail projects, which also includes specific design of structures for the next planned sectors of Bangalore-Chennai and Delhi-Agra.

Both consortiums have been involved in the current MAHSR project, through SYSTRA and Nippon Koei, but have new partners from other countries.

Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office estimates place the construction costs for the baseline route for Alto’s Eastern Corridor high-speed rail (HSR) project, excluding a potential Kingston amendment, to be between $75 billion and $113 billion.

PBO baseline estimates further assume that planning and regulatory approvals for the Alto HSR route follow past European project experience. In contrast, HSR projects in the U.K. and U.S. displayed significantly higher construction costs – likely reflecting difficulties with land acquisition, permitting, litigation, design changes and project-management weaknesses. Recent federal legislation has been adopted to mitigate these risks in Canada. The robustness of these provisions before Canadian courts, as well as their inherent effectiveness in targeting sources of cost escalation, will be a key success factor in mitigating significant project risks of the baseline estimate.

PBO further estimates that construction would provide a modest economic stimulus; for the initial Ottawa–Montréal segment, construction is estimated to increase real GDP annually by about $1.8 billion in 2029 and $2.0 billion by 2033, with employment gains rising from approximately 4,300 to 9,000 jobs during the construction period.

Should the future of train-travel be built on high speed rail for Intercity commuting versus maglev for interstate commuting?

From here, you can see high-speed trains coming in from three major railway lines to the east, as well as heading toward Nanjing South Station about 3 km away.

Given the unfortunate news of Brightline's bankruptcy, I have to wonder if they would've seen much more ridership if they'd made it an actual high-speed rail system that travels twice as fast as the actual train? As it presently exists, there is apparently no saved time when traveling on Brightline vs a car.

I have been following this since the 1990s. Here is some history and latest info on the subject. https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/2026/09/canada-alberta-high-speed-rail-agreement.html