E2 Series Shinkansen

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The E2 Series Shinkansen are new trains built between 1997 and 2005 for Japan\'s Jōetsu, Tōhoku and Nagano Shinkansen high-speed dedicated rail lines. They are formed in 8- or 10-car sets, and the 10-car sets can be coupled to E3 Series Shinkansen Komachi sets using couplers hidden behind sliding nose doors.

Their maximum speed is 275 km/h (170 mph) although large stretches of the lines on which they run have lower speed limits.

An E2-1000 Series train broke the Japanese rail speed record for a production train (i.e. not a dedicated test train) in April 2003 when it reached a speed of 362 km/h during a series of late-night high-speed test runs between Urasa and Niigata on the Jōetsu Shinkansen.

China ordered a number of 200 km/h (125 mph) trains based on the E2-1000 Series design, renamed it as CRH2, becoming the second Shinkansen train exported apart from the 700T series for Taiwan. These CRH2 trains consist of total 60 sets, the first 3 sets (2001-2003) were built in Japan, the next 6 sets were delivered in CKD and assembled by CSR Sifang Locomotive and Rolling Stock, the rest 51 sets were built by Sifang through technology transfer from Japan.

The first train arrived at Qingdao port on March 8, 2006.