quality:corruption, stylistic:tone
Japanese research and development

With some 45 million people living in the densely populated Tokyo– Osaka corridor, congestion on road and rail became a serious problem after World War II, and the Japanese government began thinking about ways to transport people in and between cities. Because Japan was resource limited and did not want to import petroleum for security reasons, energy-efficient high-speed rail was an attractive potential solution.

Japanese National Railways (JNR) engineers began to study the development of a high-speed regular mass transit service. In 1955, they were present at the Lille 's Electrotechnology Congress in France, and during a 6-month visit, the head engineer of JNR accompanied the deputy director Marcel Tessier at the DETE (SNCF Electric traction study department). JNR engineers returned to Japan with a number of ideas and technologies they would use on their future trains, including alternating current for rail traction, and international standard gauge.