500 Series Shinkansen

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Shinkansen 500 Series at Kyoto Station, March 2005
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Shinkansen 500 Series at Kyoto Station, March 2005

The 500 Series Shinkansen are currently the fastest trains on the Shinkansen network. They run on the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen railway lines. The 500 Series Shinkansen runs only the Nozomi service. This means it stops at the fewest amount of stations. Because of this, it is the fastest Shinkansen service. All 500 Series services are run with 16 cars. All seats on the train are reserved.

The 500 Series is going to be replaced by the N700 Series in 2009. When this happens, the 500 series will run with fewer cars and will stop at more stations. It will be running a slower Hikari service, instead of a Nozomi service.