Originally designated as "N300" during the development phase, they formed the next generation of shinkansen vehicles jointly designed by JR Central and JR West for use on both Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen lines.
The view of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen crossing a bridge with Mount Fuji in the background that is still used in many tourist promotion publications for Japan was taken at Fujikawa.
Tōkaidō Shinkansen (for Shin-Yokohama, Tokyo, Kyoto, and Shin-Osaka)
Shinkansen | Tōkaidō | Tōkaidō Shinkansen | Sanyo Shinkansen | Tōkaidō (road) | Tokaido | Tōhoku Shinkansen | Kyushu Shinkansen | Tōkaidō (region) | Sanyō Shinkansen | Narita Shinkansen | Nagano Shinkansen | Mini-shinkansen | L0 Series Shinkansen | Jōetsu Shinkansen | Joetsu Shinkansen | 800 Series Shinkansen |
At the same time, Sogō, who had kept estimated cost figures of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen deliberately low for fear that if they were too high neither the Japanese Government nor the World Bank would have supported the proposal, began to divert money from other JNR projects to the construction of the Shinkansen.
JR Central operates the Tōkaidō Main Line between Atami and Maibara stations, as well as the Tōkaidō Shinkansen high speed line between Tokyo and Shin-Ōsaka, and many conventional lines joining with the Tōkaidō Main Line.
In the early hours of 1 March 1991, this set recorded a speed of 325.7 km/h on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen between Maibara and Kyoto, a Japanese national speed record at the time.