Hideo Shima
| Hideo Shima | |
|---|---|
| Born |
20 May 1901 Osaka, Japan |
| Died | 18 March 1998 (aged 96) Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation | Engineer, Chief Engineer of Shinkansen Project |
Hideo Shima (島 秀雄 Shima Hideo?, 20 May 1901 – 18 March 1998) was a Japanese engineer and the driving force behind the building of the first bullet train (Shinkansen).
Shima was born in Osaka in 1901, and educated at the Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied Mechanical Engineering. His father was part of a group of officials that had built up Japan's emerging railroad industry.
Hideo Shima joined the Ministry of Railways (Japanese Government Railways) in 1925, where, as a rolling-stock engineer, he designed steam locomotives. Using new techniques to balance the driving wheels and new valve gear designs, he helped design Japan's first 3-cylinder locomotive - the Class C53, which was based on the Class C52 imported from the United States.
Shima also participated in the design and fabrication of a standard automobile which was mass-produced when World War II broke out. This experience helped in the rapid growth of the Japanese automobile industry after the war.
The Hachiko Line derailment in 1947 was a turning point in his career. JGR used the opportunity to obtain permission from SCAP to modify all wooden passenger cars (approximately 3,000 were in use then) to a steel construction within a few years.
Shima was also involved in the design and development of the Class C62 and Class D62 steam locomotives for express passenger trains and heavy-duty freight trains, respectively. It was during these years that he came up with an innovation that would later be employed in the bullet trains—the use of trains driven by electric motors in the individual rail cars, rather than by an engine at the front ("distributed-power multiple-unit control systems").
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