Documentary 'Kamo-no-miya Monogatari: The Men Who Created the Shinkansen' with Sogo-ism Released

Ikaros Publications Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; President: Akihiro Yamate), which handles media business in fields such as aviation and railways for the Impress Group, released the book 'Kamo-no-miya Monogatari: The Men Who Created the Shinkansen' on April 8, 2026.

■ The History of the Tokaido Shinkansen's Construction, Embodying Sogo-ism

'Kamo-no-miya Monogatari: The Men Who Created the Shinkansen' is a non-fiction work that depicts the perseverance and engineering philosophy of the men who challenged an unprecedentedly massive project, set on the 'Kamo-no-miya Model Line Section,' the birthplace of the Tokaido Shinkansen.

■ Main Contents

1. Project Leaders: Shinji Sogō and Hideo Shima

The foundation of the story is the strong 'determination' of Shinji Sogō, the fourth president of Japanese National Railways and the 'father of the Shinkansen,' and Hideo Shima, the chief engineer who oversaw the technical aspects. Sogō moved the organization by instilling a spirit of working two or three times harder than anyone else under 'unreasonable' circumstances of political headwinds and massive budget shortages, and by implementing a merit-based system that broke down academic cliques (Sogo-ism). Meanwhile, Shima advocated for a forward-looking 'distributed power system (electric train system)' and, while emphasizing the combination of existing technologies, actually built a state-of-the-art system incorporating the semiconductor revolution and other innovations.

2. The On-site Struggle: The Men of the Kamo-no-miya Model Line Section

The core of this book is the story of the experts who struggled to prove the feasibility of the 'dream super-express' on the Kamo-no-miya Model Line Section.

● Vehicle Design's Masahiko Ishizawa: He was the chief designer of the 'IS bogie,' the undercarriage of the first 0 Series Shinkansen. From numerous past failures, he held the belief that 'absolute safety is absolutely impossible' and incorporated safety features such as variable bogies that could adapt to age-related changes and 'horns' to prevent axle dropout in the event of a fracture.

● The 'Mischievous Boy' of Operations, Shigeru Otsuka: He commanded the test runs on the model line. The climax on March 30, 1963, where he held down the driver's hand and continued to accelerate amidst violent vibrations from snake motion, achieving the world's then-fastest speed of 256 km/h, is breathtaking.

● Track's Toshihiko Tatematsu: He fought to maintain millimeter-level accuracy under harsh ground conditions where the embankment sank by one meter a year. He moved away from traditional track maintenance that relied on spiritualism and established theoretical maintenance manuals, such as the 'Jarisan-zu' (gravel mountain chart), to objectively manage numerical data.

● Electricity's Norio Maekawa: He was responsible for 'AC electrification,' which held the key to the Shinkansen's success. He solved difficult problems such as the coexistence of 50 Hz and 60 Hz, and the massive arcs (sparks) generated during high-speed travel, by using second-hand frequency converters and cutting-edge semiconductor (silicon rectifier) technology.

● The Great Teacher, Koichi Tanigawa: He poured his heart and soul into training 220 drivers who could handle the world's first ultra-high-speed operation. The 'usable lecture notes' he wrote were long read as a theoretical bible for dealing with unexpected failures.

Through this book, it becomes clear that the Shinkansen was not just a success of hardware, but a 'proof of post-war Japan's youth' and the crystallization of the 'determination' of countless people who tried to break through unreasonable conditions.