No, that viral ‘India bullet train’ video is from Taiwan

<p><em>Special Reporting from LSN News, adapted from today's Asia Behind the Headlines episode. <a href="https://youtu.be/90st9suxgcc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Watch the video on YouTube.</a></em></p>

<p>“First glimpse of India’s bullet train.” That is how one X account captioned a video posted on 6 November, showing a white and orange high-speed train car hauled through streets at night on a giant trailer. Another viral caption, quoted by India Today, went further: “Guess what, Bullet Train engines arrive at Mumbai from Japan.” Neither is true.</p>

<p>Fact-checkers at India Today, NewsMeter, News18 and The Quint traced the clip to Taiwan. India Today said the video “is from Taiwan and shows the new N700ST train arriving at Kaohsiung Port on August 15, 2026.” The Quint called the claim false, saying the footage shows “the N700ST bullet train in Taiwan’s Kaohsiung, not India.”</p>

<h2>What the video really shows</h2>

<p>The N700ST is Taiwan High Speed Rail’s new train, based on Japan’s N700S Shinkansen and tailored to Taiwan’s specifications. The first set arrived at Kaohsiung Port on 15 August and was taken by road to the Yanchao main plant for assembly, testing and safety inspections. That night-time convoy, escorted through the streets of Kaohsiung, is what social media users have been sharing as India’s first bullet train.</p>

<p>NHK reported that a consortium including Hitachi and Toshiba won an order for a total of 144 cars, worth approximately 124 billion yen. The new train is scheduled to enter commercial operation as early as July 2027, after tests to confirm safety and comfort.</p>

<h2>India’s bullet train is being built in Bengaluru</h2>

<p>India’s first bullet train is not coming from Japan. It is being built by BEML at its Aditya plant in Bengaluru. BEML was awarded the contract in October 2024 by the Integral Coach Factory to design, manufacture and commission two high-speed trainsets of eight cars each. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw shared the first look of the trainset on Sunday, 1 November, during a visit to the plant.</p>

<p>According to the Ministry of Railways, the B28, or Bharat-made bullet trainset, has a design speed of 280 kilometres an hour and will run at 250 in its initial phase. The ministry says the first train is likely to be ready by the first quarter of 2027, and the Railways is targeting August 2027 to open the first section, the 97-kilometre Surat to Vapi stretch of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor.</p>

<p>Why not Japanese trains? The ministry has been direct about it. “Bullet train is a very ambitious project. We face certain challenges in obtaining the rolling stock from Japan. We are manufacturing the B28 right here in India,” it said. In July, India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Japan “will provide E10 series train in early 2030s,” adding: “The train is still under development.” Both sides, he said, agreed to start operations with the Indian high-speed train.</p>

<h2>A fake that gets the story backwards</h2>

<p>The posts do not just mislabel a location. They tell a story many viewers already expect: Japanese bullet trains rolling into Mumbai. The verified timeline points the other way. Japan’s new Shinkansen-based train was delivered to Taiwan in August, while India’s first high-speed trains are being made at home and Japan’s E10 is still on the drawing board.</p>

<p><strong>Our read:</strong> the fake works because it shows what people expect, a Japanese train arriving. The real story runs the other way. Japan’s new Shinkansen-based train went to Taiwan, while India, rather than wait, is building its own.</p>

<p><em>This report is part of Asia Behind the Headlines, LSN News’s daily fact-checked explainer. The presenter in the accompanying video is an AI avatar; the reporting is by the LSN News desk.</em></p>

<h2>Sources</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="https://www.news18.com/viral/fact-check-viral-video-of-bullet-train-being-transported-falsely-linked-to-india-heres-the-truth-ws-l-10416603.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">News18, 7 Nov 2026</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/fact-check/story/viral-bullet-train-video-fact-check-taiwan-n700st-not-india-3033768-2026-11-06" target="_blank" rel="noopener">India Today, 6 Nov 2026</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260815_13/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NHK World-Japan, 15 Aug 2026</a></li>

<li><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/how-india-is-making-bullet-trains-ashwini-vaishnaw-mumbai-ahmedabad-video-10945894/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indian Express, 1 Nov 2026</a></li>

<li><a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/mumbai-ahmedabad-bullet-train-indian-high-speed-trains-japan-e10-shinkansen-2030-mea-10791460/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Indian Express, 17 Jul 2026</a></li>

</ul>