Shinkansen E6 Series

The E6 series is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed train type that runs exclusively on Komachi services on the Akita Shinkansen, a mini-Shinkansen line between Akita and Morioka, continuing to and from Tokyo on the Tōhoku Shinkansen where it is coupled to a Hayabusa service run with an E5 or H5 series train. Hitachi and Kawasaki Heavy Industries built 24 seven-car trainsets between 2012 and 2014, after the first set was delivered in June 2010. Designed under the direction of Ken Okuyama, the train has a 13 metre aerodynamic nose, active suspension and active tilting of up to 1.5 degrees, which allowed it to run at 320 kilometres per hour on the Tōhoku Shinkansen, up from the 275 kilometres per hour of the E3 series it replaced, and to cut journey times by an average of 12 minutes. It won the 2014 Laurel Prize of the Japan Railfan Club.