Passage of the first Series H5 trainset through the 53.9 km Seikan tunnel linking Japan's main island of Honshu with Hokkaido on May 24 marked yet another landmark in the development of Japan's Shinkansen network. More milestones will follow soon — the next significant event will be opening of the 148.9 km section of the Hokkaido Shinkansen as far as Hakodate in December 2016. The project is already well advanced, with tracklaying completed in November 2014. To be operated by JR Hokkaido, it connects end-on with JR East's Tohoku Shinkansen at Shin-Aomori, allowing the two companies to offer through trains between Tokyo and Hakodate in just 4 h 8 min, compared with 5 h 22 min for the best connection today. At present rail has only a 14% share of the 1.2 million trips made to or from Hakodate, compared with 78% of the 3.2 million between Tokyo and Aomori, where the best journey time for the 713.7 km is 2 h 59 min.
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