PM Modi, Shigeru Ishiba travel in same car on way to Sendai, observe Alpha-X train | See pics

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shigeru Ishiba took a bullet train to travel to Sendai city during the former’s second leg of Japan visit. Both the leaders travelled in the same car on Saturday.

PM Modi and Ishiba went through the plans of the new ALFA-X train and were briefed about it by the chairman of East Japan Railway Company (JR East), the train’s operator. The Shinkasen ALFA-X Bullet Train will be running on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Corridor by the early 2030s.

Several Indian train drivers undergoing training in Japan with JR East lined up to welcome Prime Minister Modi on Saturday ahead of his bullet train journey.

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JR東日本で研修中のインド人運転士さんたちとご挨拶。 pic.twitter.com/UXKoSVP50r

— 石破茂 (@shigeruishiba) August 30, 2025

About the project

The Shinkasen ALFA-X Bullet is operated by JR East and has achieved a maximum speed of 400 km/h.

The E10 bullet trains have an advanced safety system to prevent derailment during earthquakes. It will have provisions to switch to driverless automated operation in the future.

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Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will fund Rs 88,000 crore, which is about 81 per cent of the total estimated cost of Rs 1,08,000 crore for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad-High-Speed-Rail. The remaining will be funded by the Ministry of Railways and the state governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

PM Modi meet prefecture governors

Earlier on Saturday in Tokyo, Prime Minister Modi met with governors from sixteen Japanese prefectures.

During the meeting, he “highlighted the potential of states-prefectures collaboration and in this regard urged action under the State-Prefecture Partnership Initiative launched during the 15th India-Japan Annual Summit for shared progress,” according to a post on X by Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.

今朝、東京にて日本の16県の知事と意見交換を行いました。州と県の協力は、印日間の友情における重要な柱です。そのため、昨日開催された第15回印日首脳会談においても、この地方間協力に関するイニシアティブが立ち上げられました。貿易、イノベーション、起業などの分野で大きな協力の可能性があり、… pic.twitter.com/M9v4ZFgdHq

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 30, 2025

“Cooperation between states and prefectures is an important pillar in the friendship between India and Japan. Therefore, at the 15th India-Japan Summit held yesterday, an initiative on this inter-regional cooperation was launched,” PM Modi wrote in X.