JAPANESE RAILWAY HISTORY 5

Construction of Local
Railways
Eiichi Aoki
Development of Light
Railway Policy
As a result of the nationalization ofrailways in 1906-1807, 17 leading private railway companies were purchased by the government, and only
20 private steam railway companies
continued operating. Generally,
these companies operated short lines,
and only four had a network of morethan 50 km. In addition, there wereother railways operating electric,
horse-drawn and man-poweredtrains, running mainly on tramways.
Construction of railways was believed to contribute to regional development and activation of agrarian
economies, and many local communities were enthusiastic about introducing railways in their districts. Already in 1907, railway entrepreneurs
like Keijiro Amenomiya were making
positive investments in introducing
steam locomotives for horse drawn orhuman-powered tramway running onroads, and eight steam tramways of
762 mm (2’ 6") gauge under his control, were merged into the Dainihon
Tramway Co., Ltd. in 1908.
However, the government considered it undesireble that tramwayswith limited train operation andsafety appliances, spread across Japan as popular branch lines. Lightrailways, having an intermediatetechnical standard between tramways and ordinary railways, werethought to be more desirable, for thispurpose.
In those days, Japan’s railway

34

Japan Railway & Transport Review / July 1995

■ Kubiki Railway (Niigata) No. 2 Engine built by Koppel in 1911. This 9-ton 762-mm gauge
locomotive was widely used by Japanese light railways(author)

policy was promoted under the leadership of Shimpei Goto, the first president of the Railway Board. As is clear
from the fact that he was a proponentof a broad-gauge plan, Goto made efforts to radically improve the functions of trunk lines, He also had inmind the popularization of light railways to be constructed by private investments and their role as branchlines for the Government Railways.
For this purpose, he followed a policyof extending subsidies to support lightrailways with poor profitability.
However, the railway policy most important to Goto was improving thefunctions of railway trunk lines so heavoided investing national financial
assets all-round in construction of lo-cal railways. It is thought that he regarded it as important to create anenvironment to facilitate private investments in small-scale local railways. For this purpose, he followed apolicy of limiting outlay from the government account to subsidies only.
The Light Railway Act (enforced on3 August 1910) and the Light Railway
Subsidiary Act (enforced 1 January1912) were formulated under thisrailway policy.
As intended by the government, theLight Railway Act led to many autonomous railway construction plansby local communities across the country. In a period from August 1910
when the Light Railway Act was enforced to March 1911 when fiscal 1910
Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Figure 1 Railways Lines Planned under Revised Railway Construction Act

ment Railways in those days.
Many light railways were invested
in by inhabitants in local communities along the lines. Many stockholders held just 1 or 2 shares, because
communities were more or less forced
to buy shares allotted according totheir own assets. Thus, for mostshareholders, their money was not invested in the proper sense of the word
"investment", but was a contributions
shared by villagers. In agrarian areas, landlords owned relatively large

Government railways in operation at 31 December 1922
Uncompleted lines under old Railway Construction Act and otheruncompleted lines
Privately-operated railways at 31 December 1922
(only those necessary for purpose of this article)

050

100 150 200 250km

Planned railway lines shown at the first promulgation of Revised
Railway Construction Act
Planned railway lines added by 1937 under Revised Railway
Construction Act
Seats of prefectural governments

ended, 23 new companies were licensed to operate light railways. In
addition, 17 railway companies
opened under the Private Railway
Act, and nine other private railway
companies under planning or constructing changed their legal status tolight railway by the end of the fiscal
year. Furthermore, one operating
tramway was designated as a lightrailway. Table 1 gives the trends intotal kilometers of light railways up
to 1926. The kilometers of licensed
railway lines at the end of each fiscal
year, increased rapidly from fiscal
1911-1913, 3 years after the enforcement of the Light Railway Act, declined sharply from 1914 to 1917 andclimbed again from around fiscal
1918. Furthermore, the number ofrailway companies starting service,grew from fiscal 1913 to 1915, stabilized and then grew again after fiscal
1921. Light railways boomed in the 3years after the Light Railway Act.
Many of the new light railways usedthe 762 mm (2' 6") gauge in addition
to the 1067 mm (3' 6") gauge of theGovernment Railways. This was because this was the narrowest gauge towhich the Light Railway Subsidiary
Act applied. These railways weremainly for passenger transportation,and the operators did not need to atCopyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

tach importance to direct connectionof freight cars to the Government
Railways.

Actual Conditions of LightRailways
The average construction cost oflight railways per km was about¥21,000 (1913 values) for the 762-mm
gauge and about ¥34,000 for the 1067mm (3' 6") gauge. So, it was possible
to construct a short line of about 20
km at a cost of less than ¥500,000.
Nevertheless, most light-railway
companies suffered from shortages ofconstruction funds. Consequently,
they avoided construction of tunnels
and bridges, and connections withGovernment Railways were at thenearest station. Moreover, there weremany railway lines not directly connecting to main local cities with shopping and business centers. Such connections by light railways proved to
be a fatal drawback when bus networks connected directly to central local cities developed in later years.
There were stations with no railway
men, while signal and other security
facilities were minimized. They used
light rails of 20-25 pounds/yard (1012.5 kg/m), weighing less than half
the weight of rails used by the Govern-■ Toshio Kinoshita (1874-1923)(Transportation Museum, Tokyo)

Born into a sake-brewing family in Kono-mura
Kyoto Prefecture, he graduated from the Civil Engineering Department of Tokyo Imperial University, and read law and economics in the postgraduate course. Employed by the National Railway Operation Bureau in 1899, he visited Europe
and the United States for study the next year. He
stayed in the United States, Germany and Britainfor study from September 1904 to October 1907.
In the United States, he studied the theories oftransportation, railway operation and management under Professor Emory R. Johnson at theUniversity of Pennsylvania. After his return
home, he held responsible posts in the transportation business of the Government Railways,
serving as Chief (1908-1914) of the Management
Section, Transportation Department, RailwayBoard and as Chief of the Transportation Dept. ofthe board. He introduced a major change in themanagement policy of the Government Railways
and realized services for the benefit of users. He
was instrumental in introducing express trains
and a discount system for group tourists, inviting
foreign tourists to Japan and publication of tourist
guides in English, opening the Tokyo Station Hotel and establishing the Tourist Bureau (predecessor of Japan Travel Bureau) which all embodied his ideas.
The Social and Economic Effects of Railways inJapan (1923), compiled at Kinoshita’s initiative, ishighly evaluated as a record of concrete researchon the social and economic effects of railways.
The Future of Government Railways (1923), acollection of his articles published posthumously,
contains articles about railways in competition
with automobiles and shows his farsightedness.

Japan Railway & Transport Review / July 1995

35

JAPANESE RAILWAY HISTORY 5

Table 1

Licenses, Terminations of Licenses, and Opening ofServices of Light Railways and Local Railways(Unit: km)
FY

Licenses

Changes indesignations*

Terminationsof licenses

Nationalization

Opening ofservice **

1910

633.0

769.2

––––

(374.0)1911

1,762.0

289.1

24.4

––

143.2
(7.3)

1912

1,629.6

182.4

86.6

––

255.3

1913

1,468.0

36.4

385.5

––

521.4

1914

456.0

10.1

439.0

––

487.6

1915

136.0

––

910.9

––

469.6

1916

326.6

40.7

478.9

––

143.9
(37.1)

1917

283.3

407.6

415.9

––

91.1
(321.9)

1918

495.2

––

509.9

––

230.2

1919

1,009.5

––

194.1

––

129.4

1920

785.2

––

85.6

130.4

108.4

1921

594.3

––

59.6

––

250.6

1922

1,350.1

––

105.9

35.0

372.8

1923

954.6

––

112.3

––

487.4

1924597.5

––

730.6

1925

421.2

––

260.3

23.8

330.9

1926

933.4

––

230.3

11.9

480.2

332.8

Mile-chain representations are converted to kilometers (mile = 1609 m, chain = 20 m).
(Sources: The Railway Statistical Yearbook (1910-1926))* Private railways redesignated their legal status as light railways** Bracketed figures denote those private railways in operation which were redesignatedas light railways.
In April 1919, Private Railways Act (all railways based on this act disappeared by 1918)
and Light Railways Act were merged into Local Railways Act.

numbers of shares and led planning,
construction and management of lightrailways.
Despite government subsidies, lightrailways were in financial difficulty.
Construction costs tended to be underestimated for light railways which
depended largely on capital from poor
agrarian communities. As a result,many light railways had to borrowlarge sums of money in the course ofconstruction and found it hard to pay
interest on the loans. In many cases,
light railways were barely able to
make both ends meet and only earned
small profits. But they were saddledwith large interest payments far exceeding earnings, so government subsidies were spent on paying interest.
No dividends were paid to shareholders, or were paid only to those holding
preferred stock. Thus, the capital invested by local communities in lightrailways bore almost no profits to or-36

Japan Railway & Transport Review / July 1995

dinary investors, and the asset value
was very low. In those days, it was aheavy burden on local communities toconstruct a light railway.
Against this background, construction plans for light railways declined
steeply after 1914. However, after1911, the Government Railways began to construct local lines specified
as light railway standard, that were
not regulated by the Railway Construction Act. If local inhabitants
could succeed in persuading the government via members of the Imperial
Diet from their localities and other influential persons, to construct a railway, they were able to benefit fromthe convenience of a railway without
the difficulties of fund-raising andrailway management. Constructionof local railway lines gradually began
to depend on the government, a natural and desirable development for local communities.

Significance andDevelopment of Revised
Railway Construction Act
A new Railway Construction Act wasformulated in April 1922. The old Railway Construction Act formulated in1892 was aimed at constructing a network of railway trunk lines, but thenew Railway Construction Act was intended to expand networks of local
branch lines. To distinguish it from theold Construction Laying Act, it is commonly called the Revised Railway Construction Act. This act stipulated plansfor construction of railway lines with atotal length of 10,158 km as shown inFig. 1.
The Revised Railway Construction
Act spelled out the policy of large-scaleconstruction of local railways by theGovernment Railways, unlike the Light
Railway Act which embodied the basic
government policy that local railway
networks should be constructed withprivate capital. At the same time, thisnew policy inherited and further developed the Government Railways’ policy
on light railways which had been constructed every year since 1911 outside
the framework of the old Railway Construction Act.
The Revised Railway Construction
Act did not specify the order of priorityof new lines or the start or completion
dates of construction. As a result, decisions on construction of new lines wereinfluenced by the balance of forces of political parties and factional groupingsin the Imperial Diet, In those days,
newspapers described this state of affairs as “Every Voter wants to draw
railways to his own fields,” parodying
the proverb, “Every farmer wants todraw water to his own fields.”
The fact that importance was attached to construction of new local rail-■ Railcar of Kujukuri Railway powered by FordGasoline Engine(author)Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

■ Government Railways Standard Gasoline
Railcar built in 1932-1934(author)way lines within a limited budget
meant that funds for improving existing trunk lines were eroded, and thispolicy was called the “policy of subordinating improvement of trunk lines tonew line local construction.” Seiyukai,
one of the two major political parties in
the Imperial Diet, had advocated thispolicy for a long time. Seiyukai argued
that it was the duty of the Government
Railways to construct new lines, even if
non-profitable, for the sake of the development of local economies. On theother hand, Kenseikai, later Minseito, aparty opposed to Seiyukai stressed thepolicy of improving existing lines called
the “policy of subordinating new local
line construction to improvement oftrunk lines.” Thus, Japan’s railway
policy swayed between these two policies with each change of government.
However, many Minseito Diet members
were elected from local agrarian communities and could not afford to be indifferent to the construction of local
branch lines, Consequently, many local
branch lines were constructed evenwhile Minseito was in power.
In Japan, the 1920s saw the beginning of automobile transportation. In
those days, Japanese roads were in apoor condition, but bus networks still
expanded rapidly throughout the country. Early Japanese buses had poor
performance with a carrying capacity ofless than 20 persons and an output ofabout 20 hp. Nevertheless, short local
private railway lines were defeated incompetition with bus lines and went outof business one after another. Yoshio
Kinoshita, a far-sighted bureaucrat of
the Ministry of Railways, in his posthumous work “The Future of Government
Railways” (published in 1923) explained the actual conditions of automobile transportation and competition
between railway and automobile transportation and the deteriorating condiCopyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

tions of railway management. On thisbasis, he insisted that railways and automobiles should provide services in areas where they could give full play totheir advantages and that constructionof short local branch lines in areas
where automobile transportation could
be best utilized, should be stopped.
However, proponents of such an advanced theory were a minority, andboth politicians and the public upheld
the principle that railways should be
the main means of local transportation.
Operation of bus lines by the Government Railways, originally proposed by
Kinoshita, became reality in 1930, andthe network gradually expanded.
The Government Railways continued
its policy of supplying (at relatively lowprices) its old small steam locomotives
and two-axle passenger carriages tomeet the demand for locomotives andcarriages of light railways, which rapidly grew in the 1910s. But these locomotives and passenger cars only partially met the demand from 1067-mm
gauge light railway operators. In thosedays, the Government Railways had established a production system for large
steam locomotives for its trunk lines,
but the production capacity was not sufficient to meet demand from light railways which, therefore, imported them.
German and American small locomotives were imported in large numbers.
Large numbers were made byOrenstein & Koppel A.G. of Germany,and Baldwin Locomotive Works of theUnited States. When WWI broke out,
Japan could not easily import locomotives, and Amenomiya Works (whichdeveloped from Dainihon Tramway, Tokyo) and Nippon Sharyo (Nagoya) became the main domestic suppliers. Imports from Britain were very limited inthose days.
Demand for passenger and freightcars for light railways was met completely by domestic manufacturers. Inaddition to Amenomiya and Nippon
Sharyo, there were many small localmanufacturers.
Some light railways adopted internal
combustion-engine locomotives.
Chikugo Tramway in northern Kyushu
first used an internal combustion engine locomotive for operation of commercial trains in 1905 with a locomotive powered by a single-cylinder hotbulb engine (about 10 hp) designed for afishing boat. The hot-bulb engine wasmanufactured by Fukuoka Iron Works
in Osaka, and large numbers of enginesof this kind were supplied to railways innorthern Kyushu. However, because of
their low output, they were not usedwidely in other areas.
Yoshima Railway in Fukushima Prefecture commercially operated gasoline-engined rail-cars for the first timein 1921. Later, more-and-more small
railways used gasoline-engined railcars for passenger trains. At first, suchrail-cars were used for 610-mm (2' 0")
and 762-mm (2' 6") gauge railways, but
after the mid-1920s, they were used for
1067-mm gauge railways. These gasoline engines were mostly imported fromthe United States.
The Government Railways used its
first gasoline-engined rail-cars in 1929,
but it was a failure because of low output and poor performance. However,highly-reliable gasoline engines of 100150 hp were manufactured domestically in 1933 and afterwards, and railcars powered by them were mass-produced for local lines and short trunklines throughout the Government Railway Network.
However, as imports of gasoline were
gradually restricted in the late 1930s,
the number of gasoline-engined railcars in operation declined sharply, putting a temporary end to internal combustion engine locomotives and railcars in Japan.
■Eiichi Aoki
After graduating from the Faculty of Science at Chiba University in 1957, Mr. Aoki received adoctorate in science from the Tokyo University of Education (now called Tsukuba University).
After serving at Tsuru City University and Tokyo Gakugei University as an assistant professor, hebecame a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University in 1978. He specializes in transportation geography and is also a leading Japanese scholar of the history of railways and marine transportation.
Mr. Aoki is former president of the Japan Railway History Society. His publications include WorldHistory of Sea Power and Japanese Railway– Its Rise and Development.

Japan Railway & Transport Review / July 1995

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