> the Tokaido shinkansen is only profitable in terms of OpEx [...] The CapEx cost, which the government essentially wrote off when they privatized JR [...] Tha

> the Tokaido shinkansen is only profitable in terms of OpEx [...] The CapEx cost, which the government essentially wrote off when they privatized JR [...] That doesn't seem to actually be true. To quote Alon Levy (from http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/high-speed-rail-operator-profit/ http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/high-...): "... there’s a myth going around that the Shinkansen isn’t really profitable because the government wiped its construction debt. While it’s true that the government wiped JNR’s debt, that debt was predominantly operating losses before restructuring; since JNR got few subsidies, it had to keep borrowing to cover its losses. Construction was only one eighth of the debt burden, and that part the JRs did have to pay.[1] In other words, the government really just subsidize JNR’s operating losses from its inefficient pre-restructuring days." [1] From Wikipedia: JNR's Shinkansen-fueled debt eventually ballooned to ¥28 trillion [...] The privatized JRs eventually paid a total of only ¥9.2 trillion to acquire JNR's Shinkansen network.