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Description
Before World War II, the fastest train in the Japanese empire ran not at home but abroad, on the South Manchuria Railway (南滿洲鐵道 / Mantetsu). Beginning in 1934, the Asia Express (あじあ号) covered the 580 miles from Dalian to Harbin in thirteen hours, and could reach 75 miles per hour on its standard-gauge line. The twelve Mantetsu "Pashina" (Pacific 7) 4-6-2 steam locomotives, designed by the young Mr Nobutaro Yoshino with help from Kawanishi Aircraft on the streamlined casing, often appeared in imperial propaganda to represent the development Japan boasted it could bring to Asia. The Japanese leadership planned to install a high-speed rail system once they had finished conquering China, and the Ministry of Railways (鉄道省) drew up detailed plans of "Dangan-Ressha" (弾丸列車) bullet trains running around Japan behind standard-gauge HD53 4-8-4 steam locomotives with similar streamlining to the Pashinas, but World War II led to the end of the Asia Express if not of the locomotives, which China operated as late as the 1980s. As for the other high-speed railways, they were also built but after the war and electrified -- the Shinkansen in Japan and the CRH (中國高速鐵路) in China. A model of Pashina No. 980 (Mantetsu Shahekou Works, 1933) pulling her streamlined Asia Express cars is displayed at the Hara Model Railway Museum (原鉄道模型博物館) in Yokohama, Japan.

Description
Before World War II, the fastest train in the Japanese empire ran not at home but abroad, on the South Manchuria Railway (南滿洲鐵道 / Mantetsu). Beginning in 1934, the Asia Express (あじあ号) covered the 580 miles from Dalian to Harbin in thirteen hours, and could reach 75 miles per hour on its standard-gauge line. The twelve Mantetsu "Pashina" (Pacific 7) 4-6-2 steam locomotives, designed by the young Mr Nobutaro Yoshino with help from Kawanishi Aircraft on the streamlined casing, often appeared in imperial propaganda to represent the development Japan boasted it could bring to Asia. The Japanese leadership planned to install a high-speed rail system once they had finished conquering China, and the Ministry of Railways (鉄道省) drew up detailed plans of "Dangan-Ressha" (弾丸列車) bullet trains running around Japan behind standard-gauge HD53 4-8-4 steam locomotives with similar streamlining to the Pashinas, but World War II led to the end of the Asia Express if not of the locomotives, which China operated as late as the 1980s. As for the other high-speed railways, they were also built but after the war and electrified -- the Shinkansen in Japan and the CRH (中國高速鐵路) in China. A model of Pashina No. 980 (Mantetsu Shahekou Works, 1933) pulling her streamlined Asia Express cars is displayed at the Hara Model Railway Museum (原鉄道模型博物館) in Yokohama, Japan.