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Filed under not cheap: super-first class trains at 200mph in Japan

On the train in Japan, "green" does not refer to the environment. Nor to the color of money, as the extreme amounts necessary to buy "green" tickets there are colored in the generally neutral tones of 10,000 yen bills.

Graham Webster
Formerly a journalist and consultant in Beijing, Graham Webster is a graduate student studying East Asia at Harvard University. At Sinobyte, he follows the effects of technology on Chinese politics, the environment, and global affairs. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
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Graham Webster

On the train in Japan, "green" does not refer to the environment. Nor to the color of money, as the extreme amounts necessary to buy "green" tickets there are colored in the generally neutral tones of 10,000 yen bills. Soon there will be "super-green" to take even more of your hard-earned gray.

East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) will introduce super-first class cars on a new extension to its bullet train routes in 2010. The luxuries, according to the Japanese paper Mainichi Shimbun, are to exceed the already comfy-looking green cars on the tracks.

The newer trains will also have a new maximum speed of 320kph (199mph). After a two-week trip enjoying the all-country JR train pass (which cost me, but was worth it), I wonder who could possibly need a more luxurious train than the already clean, orderly, and quiet cars I had on even the less expensive Hikari trains.

Then again, who pays for first class on Virgin Air?