[guan]

The French state railway company SNCF has a low-cost service high speed TGV service called Ouigo that also uses stations on the periphery of some cities (while regular TGV goes into central stations), just like low-cost airlines.

[seanmcdirmid]

Sounds weird. The reason China and japan do is way is to keep the HSR track as straight and short as possible. Bringing a train into a city that isn’t an end point would probably slow it down a lot.

[Grue3]

With Gifu-Hashima and other "rural" Shinkansen stations the reason is usually political. For example Gifu Prefecture would not allow the line to pass through the prefecture without a station being built. From Gifu city center it's actually faster to take a train to Nagoya and change to Shinkansen there, especially since every train stops at Nagoya and only a few at Gifu-Hashima.

[guan]

In the case of Ouigo, I believe it’s in part because the station and track owner charges less to use peripheral stations than for central stations, and in part for price discrimination, so less price-sensitive business travelers and wealthier travelers aren’t tempted to go for the cheaper option.