Concerns about huge estimated costs and future profitability are casting a shadow over Central Japan Railway Co.'s long-term project to build a magnetically levitating train system.
The project to run the world's fastest train between Tokyo and Osaka would be a big step for the railway, known as JR Tokai, which is eager to expand current passenger capacity. It also aims to hedge any risk caused by natural disasters by shortening the nation's most crowded rail route, which is now 515 km. The planned maglev route is 290 km, on which the trains would run at 581 kph.
"It's a project to give a dream to the public in the 21st century," JR Tokai Chairman Yoshiyuki Kasai said in a recent speech in Tokyo.