Japanese National Railways.html



Freight train in Hokkaidō (1973)

Japanese National Railways (日本国有鉄道, Nippon Kokuyū Tetsudō^?), abbreviated Kokutetsu (国鉄, Kokutetsu^?) or "JNR", was the national railway network of Japan from 1949 to 1987.

History

The term Kokuyū Tetsudō "state-owned railway" originally referred to a network of railway lines operated by nationalized companies under the control of the Railway Institute following the nationalization in 1906 and 1907. Later, the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications took over control of the network. The ministries used the name Japanese Government Railways (JGR) to refer their network in English. During World War II, many JGR lines were dismantled to supply steel for the war effort.

In 1949, JGR was reorganized into a state-owned public corporation by a directive of the U.S. General HQ in Tokyo. The new corporation enjoyed many successes, including the 1964 inauguration of high-speed Shinkansen service. However, the network's rapid expansion also pulled it further and further into debt as it took out huge loans to fund new capital projects.

By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥25 trillion ($200 billion). That year, the network was privatized by an act of the Diet of Japan, and divided into several companies collectively called the Japan Railways Group (JR Group). Contemporary offspring of JNR include the East Japan Railway Company, West Japan Railway Company, and Central Japan Railway Company.

See also: History of rail transport in Japan and Japanese Government Railways

Timeline

• June 12, 1872 - Provisional opening of Tokyo-Yokohama railway (Shinagawa Station - Yokohama Station)
• October 1, 1907 - Completion of nationalization of 17 private railways under 1906 Railway Nationalization Act
• June 1, 1949 - Japanese National Railways organized
• October 1, 1964 - Inauguration of the Tōkaidō Shinkansen high-speed line
• April 1, 1987 - Privatization of JNR, establishment of seven JR companies

Network

Railways

As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated 19,756.8 km of narrow gauge (1,067 mm) railways in all 46 prefectures of Japan (Okinawa, the 47th prefecture, returned to the Japanese administration in 1972 but no JNR line existed in Okinawa). This figure expanded to 21,421.1 km in 1981 (excluding Shinkansen), but later reduced to 19,633.6 km as of March 31, 1987, the last day of JNR.^[1]

JNR operated both passenger and freight services.

Shinkansen, the world-first high-speed railway was debuted by JNR in 1964. By the end of JNR in 1987, four lines were constructed:

Tōkaidō Shinkansen

515.4 km, completed in 1964

Sanyō Shinkansen

553.7 km, completed in 1975

Tōhoku Shinkansen

492.9 km as of 1987

Jōetsu Shinkansen

269.5 km, completed in 1982

Buses

JNR operated bus lines as feeders, supplements or substitutions of railways. Unlike railway operation, JNR Bus was not superior to other local bus operators. The JR Bus companies are the successors of the bus operation of JNR.

Ships

JNR operated ferries to connect railway networks separated by sea or to meet other local demands:

Kanmon Ferry (discontinued in 1964)

Shimonoseki Station (Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi) – Mojikō Station (Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka)

Miyajima Ferry

Miyajimaguchi Station (Ōno, Hiroshima) – Miyajima Station (Miyajima, Hiroshima)

Nihori Ferry (discontinued in 1982)

Nigata Station (Kure, Hiroshima) – Horie Station (Matsuyama, Ehime)

Ōshima Ferry (discontinued in 1976)

Ōbatake Station (Yanai, Yamaguchi) – Komatsukō Station (Suō-Ōshima, Yamaguchi)

Seikan Ferry

Aomori Station (Aomori, Aomori) – Hakodate Station (Hakodate, Hokkaidō)

Ukō Ferry

Uno Station (Tamano, Okayama) – Takamatsu Station (Takamatsu, Kagawa)

Out of three routes assigned to JR companies in 1987, only the Miyajima Ferry remains active as of 2007.

Accidents and criminal incidents

Accidents

JNR as a public corporation (from 1949 to 1987) experienced five major accidents (including two shipwrecks of railway ferries) with casualties more than 100:

Sakuragichō train fire

A train fire at Sakuragichō Station in Yokohama on April 24, 1951 killed 106.

Toya Maru disaster

A Seikan ferryboat sank off Hakodate killing 1,155 in a typhoon storm on September 26, 1954.

Shiun Maru disaster

An Ukō ferryboat collided with a fellow boat in a dense fog and sank killing 166 on May 11, 1955.

Mikawashima rail crash

A three-train collision near Mikawashima Station in Tokyo on May 3, 1962 killed 160.

Yokohama rail crash

A three-train collision near Tsurumi Station in Yokohama on November 9, 1963 killed 161.

Criminal incidents

In its very early days as a public corporation, JNR experienced a series of mysterious incidents as follows. Although the police at that time treated them as terrorism by the communists, doubts have been raised to such conclusion.

Shimoyama incident 

A dismembered body of JNR President Sadanori Shimoyama was found on a railway track on July 5, 1949.

Mitaka incident 

A train run without crew crushed into passengers and killed six people on July 15, 1949.

Matsukawa incident 

A train was derailed because of destroyed track and three crew were killed on August 17, 1949.

In later years, JNR was a target of radical lefts. On October 21, 1968, groups of extremist students cerebrating "International Antiwar Day" occupied and destroyed Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.^[2] They criticized JNR's collaboration to the Vietnam War by operating freight trains carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military use. On November 29, 1985, militants supporting a radical sect of JNR's labor union objecting to the privatization of JNR demolished signal cables at 33 points around Tokyo and Osaka to halt thousands of commuter trains and then set fire to Asakusabashi Station in Tokyo.^[3]

As such, the relationship with labor unions was always a difficult problem of JNR. Since public workers were prohibited to strike, they carried out "work-to-rule protests" that caused trains delay. On March 13, 1973, delays of trains caused by such protests resulted in a riot of angered passengers at Ageo Station in Saitama Prefecture (Ageo incident).^[4]

Baseball team

Between 1950 and 1965, JNR indirectly owned a professional baseball team named Kokutetsu Swallows (国鉄スワローズ, Kokutetsu Suwarōzu^?). Swallow was a symbol of JNR as it is the English equivalent of Japanese Tsubame, the name of a deluxe train of JNR in 1950s.

Kokutetsu Swallows are the predecessors of present-day Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

See also

• Japan Railways locomotive numbering and classification
• SoftBank Telecom – former Japan Telecom, an affiliated company of JNR established in 1984

References

External links

• Japan Railways Technical Research Institute: Brief history of Japanese railways