The history of rail transport in Japan began in the late Edo period.
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Though rail transport had been known through Dutch traders in Dejima, Nagasaki and earlier, the impact of model railroads brought by foreigners such as Yevfimy Putyatin and Matthew Calbraith Perry was huge. The British also demonstrated a running steam locomotive in Nagasaki. Saga Domain, a Japanese feudal domain (han), made a working model and even planned to construct a line by themselves. Other bodies such as the Satsuma Domain and the Tokugawa shogunate also reviewed railway construction. But a real line in service did not come into reality before the Meiji Restoration.
Just prior to 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 (soon to be renamed Tokyo).[1] In 1868 Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant, was responsible for bringing the first steam railway locomotive called the "Iron Duke" to Japan which he demonstrated on an 8-mile track at Ōura.[2] In the second year of the restoration, after considerable diplomatic manoeuvring with the American mission, the new government of Japan decided to build a railway using British technical advisors.[3] On September 12, 1872, the first railway, between Shimbashi (later Shiodome) and Yokohama (present Sakuragichō) opened. (The date is in Tenpō calendar, October 14 in present Gregorian calendar). Japan relied on the United Kingdom financially and technically.
The reason of rail gauge choice remains uncertain. It could be because 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm), as opposed to standard gauge of 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), was supposed to be cheaper, or because the first British agent, later whose contract was cancelled, ordered iron sleepers of the gauge. Anyway the decision still affects Japanese railways today, as the narrow gauge became the de facto standard.
Some 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 railway network terribly slow. Politicians then wanted to allow private companies to build railways. Consequently, Nippon Railway was founded. It was a private entity, but strongly effected the government's construction projects. It expanded railway lines fairly quickly, completing the main line between Ueno and Aomori (present Tōhoku Main Line) in 1891. With the success of Nippon Railway, private companies were also founded. Sanyō 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 did open its railway 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.
Rail transport was introduced not only for inter-city, but also for intra-city transportation. The first horsecar line in Japan was built in Tokyo in 1882. The first tram was the Kyoto Electric Railway (京都電気鉄道 Kyōto Denki Tetsudō), which opened in 1895.
Also, some operators began to use EMUs, rather than locomotives, for inter-city transportation. Many such railway companies, modeled after interurbans in the United States, are the origins of the current private railway operators.
Private companies were the major players in the early stages. However, after the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, the government planned to directly control the unified railway network for strategic purposes. In 1906, Railway Nationalization Act was promulgated, nationalizing many trunk railway lines. From this time, the national railway became the major Japanese railway network.
However, having used its money for nationalizing, the government didn't have enough money to further expand the network to the countryside. They passed the Light Railway Act, encouraging smaller private operators to build light railways (軽便鉄道 keiben tetsudō).
Larger private railway operators, on the other hand, further developed their business modeled after interurbans. Hanshin Express Electric Railway (the current Hankyu Railway) built its own department store connected to its terminus; the management model still used today. Unlike interurban operators in United States that suffered from motorization as early as 1910s, Japanese counterparts didn't experience the phenomenon as late as 1960s, giving them stable development and allowing their survival to the present.
As an intra-city rapid transit, the first subway in the East (the current Tokyo Metro Ginza Line) opened in 1927. The first trolleybus in the nation appeared in 1928.
In the territories of the Japanese Empire at the time, railways in Korea, Taiwan, and Sakhalin were built by the Japanese. In Manchukuo, a nation in the current Northeast China virtually controlled by Japanese, South Manchuria Railway operated its railway network.
One of achievements in this period in railway technology was the conversion of all the link and pin couplers of locomotives and cars on the national network to automatic couplers. This work was took place in July 1925 (in Honshū and Kyūshū) after considerable preparation.[4] On April 1, 1930, the Ministry of Railways adopted the metric system, replacing British Imperial system, for the measuring of railways.[5]
After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War (World War II), the nation, including its railways, went under the military control. In 1938, the government decided to unify private railways into regional blocks, making larger companies such as Tokyo Kyuko Electric Railway (called Great Tōkyū in comparison with postwar Tōkyū) or Kinki Nippon Railway.
Also in this period, there was a second wave of railway nationalization. Twenty-two railway companies were forcibly acquired by the government in 1943 and 1944. Unlike the first wave in 1906–1907 that integrated trunk lines into the governmental control, the second wave mainly targeted railways with industrial value. Those acquired lines include the Tsurumi Line, the Hanwa Line and the Iida Line.
On October 11, 1942, the Ministry of Railways adopted the 24-hour clock system for timekeeping of trains following the use in the military.
From 1943, the national railway reduced its (civilian) passenger service, putting priority for military transportation. In 1944, it abolished all the limited express trains, first class cars, dining cars, and sleeping cars. Under the Ordinance for Collection of Metals (金属類回収令 Kinzokurui Kaishū Rei, Imperial Ordinance No. 835 of 1941), some railway operators were forced to remove one track from double track lines and others were even forced to discontinue their business in order to satisfy the military demand for steel with the rails removed from tracks.[6]
On January 29, 1940, a train fire at Ajikawaguchi Station on the Nishinari Line resulted in 189 deaths. This is the deadliest rail accident in the history of Japan (although the death toll of another accident on the Hachikō Line in 1945 was arguably underestimated and might exceed this).
The war, especially strategic bombings by United States, damaged Japanese railways heavily. The worst case was that in Okinawa, which completely lost its rail transport until the opening of Yui Rail in 2003. In most cases, however, railways at least resumed their operations fairly quickly. Some lines of the national railway resumed right after the day of Tokyo bombing. Sanyō Main Line resumed two days after the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, while Hiroshima Electric Railway resumed three days after.
Still, it took a little more time for Japanese railways to fully recover from the war. Right after the Japanese defeat, due to the lack of materials, facilities were not properly maintained. The lack of materials also meant that people had to buy wholesale all the time, which then meant the rapid increase of railway passengers. However, train services were even more reduced from the wartime, due to the lack of coal. The situation resulted overcrowded trains with a lot of rail accidents. On the other hand, the transport related to U.S. General HQ (GHQ) were put under the first priority, with a lot of "Allies personnel only" trains being operated.
In 1949, under the directive of the GHQ, the Japanese Government Railways, which had been directly operated by the Ministry of Transportation, was reorganized as Japanese National Railways (JNR), a public company.
From 1950s, the electrification of trunk lines began to progress. The electrification of Tōkaidō Main Line completed in 1956, Sanyō Main Line in 1964, and Tōhoku Main Line in 1968. In 1954, the government decided to abolish steam locomotives, and all of them disappeared in 1976. It was also around this time that many trains shifted from the traditional locomotive-hauled system to the multiple unit system by EMUs or DMUs. The "New Performance Trains" (新性能電車 Shin-seinō densha), such as 101 series EMU developed in 1957 symbolizes the phenomenon.
1960s saw the great improvement of Japanese economy, including the railway. Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the first modern high-speed rail of the world, opened in 1964. Many limited express trains and overnight trains also started to run across the nation, making the golden age of Japanese railways.
At the same time, however, Japan finally had its motorization, and tram networks in cities were treated as impediments of vehicles. They quickly disappeared, substituted by rapidly built subway networks. The first monorail in the country, Ueno Zoo Monorail, also opened in 1957.
With the expanding economy, the number of commuters using railways rapidly increased, especially in the Greater Tokyo Area. JNR tried to increase its capacity by the Five Directions of Commuting Campaign (通勤五方面作戦 Tsūkin Go-hōmen Sakusen); the campaign to redevelop major five lines in the area by making them quadruple track lines. This improved the network tremendously, but at the same time, the huge cost of the reconstruction became the debt of JNR.
The cost of the campaign, as well as that of the construction of Shinkansen and other railway networks, increased the debt. Also, the confrontation between the trade union and the company was serious, resulting many strike actions. To resolve the situation, JNR was separated and privatized in 1987, becoming Japan Railways Group (JR Group).
After the privatization, the JR companies tried to renovate their services, some of them being successful. At the same time, many local lines with lower riderships have closed, since JRs are now private companies. Decades after the motorization, railways in the countryside, often inconvenient with infrequent services, became less important for locals. The relative share of railroads in total passenger kilometers fell from 66.7 percent in 1965 to 42 percent in 1978, and to 29.8 percent in 1990.
Also, the fierce competition between railway operators put a great emphasis on efficiency, possibly more so than safety. Some think Amagasaki rail crash in 2005, which killed more than 100 passengers, is the result of such a trend.
Rail transport in Japan still does deserve its fame with efficiency, capacity, punctuality, and technology. Port Liner, one of the first AGT of the world, opened in 1981. Seikan Tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in the world, and the Great Seto Bridge linked major four islands of Japan by rail in 1988. JR-Maglev, a tested maglev train system, reached its world record speed of 581 km/h in 2003, while much slower Linimo, debuted in 2005, is the first maglev metro of the world.
The development of Japan in the 20th century is analogous to that of its rail transport. Throughout the times, railway was the most important means of transportation in the country, and it still is in larger cities. As many of Japanese suburban cities were developed by railway operators, its unchallenged importance is something unique among the world.
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