History of rail transport in Japan


The history of rail transport in Japan began in the late Edo period. There have been four main stages:
  1. Stage 1, from 1872, the first line, from Tokyo to Yokohama, to the end of the Russo-Japanese war;
  2. Stage 2, from nationalization in 1906-07 to the end of World War II;
  3. Stage 3, from the postwar creation of Japanese National Railways to 1987;
  4. Stage 4, from privatization to the present, with JNR split among six new railway operators for passengers and one for freight.

    Stage 1: early development, 1872–1906

The development of the Japanese railway network commenced shortly after the country opened its borders to formal international contact after a shogunate-imposed isolation of about 250 years, and was initiated so that Japan could achieve rapid modernization.
Though rail transport had been known through limited foreign contact such as with Dutch traders in Dejima, Nagasaki, the impact of model railroads brought by foreigners such as Yevfimiy Putyatin and Commodore Matthew C. Perry was huge. The British also demonstrated a steam locomotive in Nagasaki. Saga Domain, a Japanese feudal domain, made a working model and planned to construct a line. Bodies such as the Satsuma Domain and the Tokugawa shogunate reviewed railway construction from Edo to Kyoto via an inland route, but a line did not come to reality before the Meiji Restoration.
Whilst the Emperor of Japan, based in Kyoto, was the titular ruler of the country, since circa 1600 Japan had been effectively ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, based in Edo. In 1866 the shogunate proposed a railway from Edo to Kyoto via an inland route, but in 1868 the Meiji Restoration saw the Emperor returned as an effective leader of the country, relocating his permanent residence to the renamed Tokyo. Just before the fall of the shogunate, the Tokugawa regime issued a grant to the American diplomat Anton L. C. Portman to construct a line from Yokohama to Edo, but this grant was not continued by the new regime.
In 1868 Thomas Blake Glover, an Anglo-Scottish merchant, was responsible for bringing the first steam locomotive, "Iron Duke", to Japan, which he demonstrated on an 8-mile track in the Ōura district of Nagasaki. However, after about 250 years of a culture of distrust of foreigners, construction of the premier railway connecting Japan's former and new capitals by non-Japanese was considered politically unacceptable to the new Japanese regime, and so the government of Japan decided to build a railway from the major port of Yokohama to Tokyo using British financing and 300 British and European technical advisors: civil engineers, general managers, locomotive builders and drivers. In order to undertake its construction, foreign experts were contracted, with the specific intent that such experts would educate Japanese co-workers so that Japan could become self-sufficient in railway construction expertise, at which time the foreign contractors were expected to leave the country. On Nagatsuki 12, Meiji 5, the first railway, between Shimbashi and Yokohama opened.. A one-way trip took 53 minutes in comparison to 40 minutes for a modern electric train. Service started with nine round trips daily.
British engineer Edmund Morel supervised construction of the first railway on Honshu during the last year of his life, American engineer Joseph U. Crowford supervised construction of a coal mine railway on Hokkaidō in 1880, and German engineer Herrmann Rumschottel supervised railway construction on Kyushu beginning in 1887. All three trained Japanese engineers to undertake railway projects. Shikoku was relatively resource-poor and maintained fewer railways than the other major islands, with the only major ones being found near the ports of Takamatsu and Tokushima. Honshu had both private and public rails, which often began in Osaka and Tokyo and radiated outwards to other major urban centers, whereas private and resource extraction-oriented railways were more common in Kyushu, Hokkaido, and Shikoku. Two men trained by Crowford later became presidents of Japan National Railways. A bronze bust of Morel in, a bronze statue of Crowford in the Temiya Railway Memorial Museum, and a bust of Rumschottel in commemorate their contributions to Japan's railways.
The precise reason why a track gauge of came to be selected remains uncertain. It could be because this gauge was supposed to be cheaper to build than the internationally more widely used "Stephenson gauge" of, or because the first British agent, whose contract was later cancelled, ordered iron sleepers made for the narrower gauge. It seems most likely, however, that Morel's previous experience building Cape gauge railways in similar New Zealand terrain was a significant influence, and Cape gauge became the de facto standard.

Network expansion

The next line constructed was from another port, Kobe, to the major commercial city of Osaka, and then to Kyoto and Otsu at the southern end of Lake Biwa. A line was constructed from Tsuruga, on the Sea of Japan, to Ogaki via Nagahama on the northern end of Lake Biwa, opening in 1884 and utilizing trans-shipment onto water-going vessels to connect the Sea of Japan to Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya.
Linking Tokyo to Nagoya and Kyoto became the next priority. Initially, the proposed route was inland, from Tokyo north to Takasaki, then west through the Usui Pass to Karuizawa and the Kiso River valley. At this time the Nippon Railway Co. became the first to be granted a concession to operate what became the Tohoku Main Line from Ueno to Aomori, with a branch line from Omiya to Takasaki. Construction of both lines was undertaken by the Government at the company's expense, with the government having running rights on the Takasaki-Ueno section. The line to Takasaki opened in 1884, as did the Tohoku line as far as Utsunomiya.
The NRC also financed a new line linking to the Yokohama line which was built from Akabane via Shinjuku to Shinagawa. This was the first section of what has become the Yamanote Line, and opened in 1885.
The government-funded line from Takasaki reached Yokokawa at the base of the Usui Pass in 1885, and initial surveys indicated a ruling grade of 10% and extensive tunnelling was required to reach Karuizawa.
Construction also started on another line from the Sea of Japan, commencing at Naoetsu and opening to Karuizawa via Nagano in 1888.
As the costs of construction through the mountainous interior of Japan became apparent, in 1886 the construction of what became the Tokaido line was approved, approximately paralleling the southern coastline as far as Nagoya. Although ~238 km longer, it was projected to cost 13% less, this saving then being allocated to construct a line from Otsu along the eastern side of Lake Biwa to Nagahama to remove the need for trans-shipment, which opened in 1889, as did the final section of the Tokaido Line via Gotemba. Until the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964, this was the most important main line in Japan.
In the meantime, the Tohoku line reached Sendai in 1887 and Aomori in 1891.

Consolidating the network

In 1888 the San'yō Railway Co. was granted a charter to build the San'yō Main Line from Kobe west to Shimonoseki, a port providing a connection to the port of Moji on Kyushu, from which the Kyushu Railway Co built its line to Hakata and Kumamoto opening between 1889 and 1891, extended to Yatsushiro in 1896. The SRC line reached Hiroshima in 1894, and Shimonoseki in 1901.
Other private endeavours included the Mito Railway, which opened the first section of the Joban Line in 1889 and was acquired by the NRC in 1892 which extended to Sendai via an east coastal route in 1905 and the Bantan Railway, which built a 52 km line north from Himeji between 1894 and 1901, and was acquired by the SRC in 1903.
The success of the Nippon Railway Co and other private companies led to a Japanese situation akin to the UK Railway Mania. From the mid-1880s until 1891 new railway companies had little difficulty in attracting funding, usually through issuing shares. However, in 1891 the failure of a company proposing to build a line from Gotenba to Matsumoto ended the "mania", and the Government realized a more planned approach to the network expansion it desired was required.

Evolving policy

In 1887 the Japanese Army proposed building its own lines to ensure routes of military significance were given priority. The Railway Department deflected that proposal by commencing the development of a policy for a comprehensive national network. The Japanese Government became increasingly interested in policy formulation following the completion of the Tokaido Main Line in 1889, the creation of the National Diet in 1890 and the financial panic of 1891.
1891 also saw construction start on the Usui Pass section, the ~11 km section to Karuizawa requiring 26 tunnels, 18 viaducts and to be worked using the Abt rack railway system to cope with the 6.67% ruling grade. The line opened in 1893, linking Naoetsu and Nagano to Tokyo.
In 1892 the Railway Construction Act listed a series of priority routes on Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku, with the specific policy that private construction of such routes would be encouraged, with the Japanese Government only funding routes not able to be privately constructed. By that year the privately owned network was ~2,124 km compared to the government-owned sections totalling ~887 km. While this figure seemed to indicate the potential for further private funding of railway construction, subsequent events demonstrated otherwise.
A two-phase approach was adopted in the RCA, with 40 routes totalling ~3,000 km included in the "phase one" 12-year program, with phase 2 covering another ~4,000 km of proposed lines, the priorities being set based on economic development and/or military strategic importance.
A specific outcome of the RCA was that every prefecture would be served by railway communication. The major routes proposed under the act for government construction included;
  • The Chuo line, an inland connection from Tokyo to Nagoya favoured by the military ;
  • The Ou line, also detailed below;
  • Extension of the line from Tsuruga to Kanazawa and Toyama opened 1896-1899;
  • A connection from the Chuo line at Shiojiri to Matsumoto and Nagano opened in 1900-1902; and
  • The original inland line from Kagoshima to Yatsushiro opened 1901-1909
The Chuo line, the route which approximated the initial proposed inland line between Tokyo and Nagoya, was favoured by the military as its inland alignment protected it from the perceived risk of bombardment by enemy vessels. A privately built line from Shinjuku to the silk industry centre of Hachioji opened in 1889, and this became the starting point for government construction.
The newly determined route was via Kofu, Shiojiri and then via the Kiso River valley to Nagoya. Construction was undertaken from both ends, with sections opening sequentially from 1900 until the lines were connected in 1911.
The Ou line from Fukushima to Yamagata, Akita and Aomori, serving the poorer northern Sea of Japan coastal prefectures, was seen as a priority for national development that was commercially unattractive. The government commenced construction from Aomori towards Hirosaki in 1894, and at the southern end from Fukushima in 1899, the lines connecting in 1905.
Tellingly, most of the major routes proposed under the act for private construction were not so funded and were ultimately constructed by the government, including;
  • Oita – Miyazaki, opened 1911–1923 as part of the Nippo Main Line;
  • Takamatsu – Kochi – Yawatahama ;
  • Okayama – Yonago, opened 1919–1928 as the Hakubi Line;
  • Shinjo – Sakata, opened 1913–1914 as the Rikuu West Line;
  • Morioka – Omagari, partially opened as a light railway in 1921, upgraded and completed in 1966 as the Tazawako Line and now part of the Akita Shinkansen line.
A few of the lines that were privately funded included Tsubata – Nanao, opened in 1898 as the Nanao Line, and the Kabe Line from Hiroshima, opened 1909–1911 as a 2'6" gauge light railway, the proposed destination of Hamada on the Sea of Japan coast never being reached.
In contrast, the major naval port of Kure was proposed to be served by a government line from Hiroshima, opened as a private line in 1903 only to be nationalized in 1906.
The development and in particular the financing of the railway network featured an ongoing debate about the merits of private vs public railway ownership, with an example of this situation being the Horonai Railway on Hokkaido, which was constructed using public funds in 1880, privatized in 1889 and re-nationalized in 1906.
Construction continued on routes already secured by private companies, including a direct Osaka – Nagoya line opened in 1898 by the Kansai Railway Co.
Railway policy development had evolved rapidly as the learnings about, and benefits of the railway became apparent, and as the Japanese government realized it could not afford to finance all the railway construction desired. However, even as it facilitated private railway development, some government representatives advocated for all railways to be nationally owned.
Given the Japanese government could not fund all construction on the main island of Honshu, let alone the rest of Japan, it is no surprise the construction of the initial lines on Hokkaido, Shikoku and Kyushu was undertaken by the Prefectural government and private companies respectively, and then the Hokkaido line was sold to a private operator in 1889, though the government built the line from Hakodate to Otaru in 1903-04, which connected to the private line to Sapporo.
By 1905, ~80% of the Japanese railway network was privately owned, and included joint operations such as an overnight sleeper train from Tokyo to Shimonoseki, changing from JGR to SRC operation at Kobe.
Politicians such as Inoue Masaru stated all the railway lines should be nationalized. However, the government was financially strained after the Satsuma Rebellion, making the expansion of the network slow. Politicians then wanted to allow private companies to build railways. Consequently, Nippon Railway was founded as a private entity, strongly affecting the government's projects. It expanded railways fairly quickly, completing the main line between Ueno and Aomori in 1891. With the success of Nippon Railway, private companies were also founded. San'yō Railway, Kyūshū Railway, Hokkaidō Colliery and Railway, Kansai Railway and Nippon Railway were called the "major five private railways" at the time. At the same time, the national railway opened lines, including the current Tōkaidō Main Line in 1889, but most of its lines were subsidiary to major private lines. In 1892, the Imperial Diet promulgated the Railway Construction Act, which listed 33 railway routes that should be constructed by either the government or private entities.
Railways were introduced to provide both inter-city and intra-city transport. The first horsecar line in Japan was built in Tokyo in 1882. The first tram was the Kyoto Electric Railway, which opened in 1895.
Some operators began to use EMUs rather than locomotives for inter-city transport. Many such railway companies, modelled after interurbans in the United States, are the origins of the current private railway operators.
  • 1872 – Opening of Japan's first railway between Shimbashi and Sakuragichō
  • 1889 – Completion of the Tōkaidō Main Line
  • 1892 – Promulgation of the Railway Construction Act
  • 1893 – Class 860 steam locomotive, the first locomotive built in Japan
  • 1895 – Opening of Japan's first streetcar, in Kyoto