Which state railway operated Japan's first Shinkansen service in 1964?

Japanese National Railways operated Japan’s first Shinkansen service in 1964. The inaugural route was the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, linking Tokyo and Shin-Ōsaka, and it began service on 1 October 1964, just before the Tokyo Olympics.

The trains were the famous 0 series, designed for high-speed travel on a new standard-gauge line separate from Japan’s older network. The first Hikari services cut the Tokyo–Osaka journey to about four hours, a dramatic improvement over conventional limited expresses.

Japanese National Railways, usually abbreviated JNR, was Japan’s national railway corporation from 1949 until its breakup and privatization in 1987. A common mix-up is crediting Odakyu Electric Railway: its 145 km/h Romancecar test train helped prove high-speed rail was practical, but Odakyu did not operate the first Shinkansen. The Japan Railways Group came later, after JNR was reorganized.