Tourists can buy a Japan Rail Pass (outside of Japan) for a specified period of unlimited travel on these trains. These modern wonders of technology are powered by electricity and travel on specially built lines.

I was recently in Japan with my family and these trains took us all over the country. A memorable journey was traveling from Tokyo to Kyoto on the Hikari Shinkansen, a distance of over 513km - which we covered in just 2 hours 40 minutes.

The maximum speed of this Shinkansen was about 320 km/h. At that speed, you feel a bit giddy when looking out at the scenery as it is flying by.

The first Shinkansen train began operation in Japan on October 1, 1964 - yes that's right - 52 years ago - and we are still talking about how to build one in Australia. The average delay for these Shinkansen trains is only 36 seconds and over 800 Shinkansen trains run per day.

Buy a Japan Rail Pass

Watch below for footage of the train