East Japan Railway Company (JR East) will introduce the E927 Shinkansen-dedicated inspection train in fiscal 2029 in Japan.
The inspection train will be usable across the Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokuriku, Yamagata, and Akita Shinkansen lines. It is a Shinkansen-conventional line through-service train based on the next-generation Akita Shinkansen and supports a maximum speed of 320 kilometers per hour.
Measurement of track irregularities will shift to multi-point two-dimensional laser measurement using an integrated underfloor system, achieving higher accuracy even at speeds above 275 kilometers per hour. Overhead contact line fittings will be detected in images by artificial intelligence to determine pass/fail status, while slit-light imaging of the contact wire will capture its cross-section and position to measure wear. The equipment for the overhead line fittings and contact wire will be newly developed by JR East’s Research and Development Center, based on technology from the Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI).
With an eye toward labor savings and unmanned inspections conducted remotely, JR East is also considering introducing autonomous operation similar to that used on revenue-service trains. The design will be selected through an internal competition, with the details for the production train supervised by tangerine and finalized by around summer 2026.
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