Train station at the northern edge of
Osaka City: its name literally means "New Osaka." It was built in
1964 as the western
terminus for the
Tokaido Shinkansen,
aka the
bullet train.
Osaka Station, located in the middle of
Umeda, was so deep inside the city that the National Railways decided to build a new station rather than spare the expense to run the Shinkansen lines underground (as they had to do in
Tokyo).
Shin-Osaka looks more like an airport terminal than a railway station because it primarily caters to business travelers and tourists, not commuters. The only other lines feeding into the station are the subway's Midosuji Line and JR's Kyoto Line.