The Joetsu, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Hokkaido, Yamagata & Akita shinkansen routes all run north and east from Tokyo Each Shinkansen route has its own train names to indicate an all-stations, semi-fast or express train. For example on the Tokaido & Sanyo shinkansen a Kodama is all-stations, Hikari...
On subways, where usually the rush hour crunches are the worst, trains in large cities run extremely frequently, brushing up against the physical limitation of the tracks. The limit is dictated by thebrick wall rule, which states that the signal system must at any point assume that the train...