page_title: History of rail transport in Japan
section_title: Evolving policy
hierarchical_section_title: History of rail transport in Japan / Stage 1: Early Development, 1872–1906 / Evolving policy
context_page_description: The history of rail transport in Japan began in the late Edo period. There have been four main stages:
  Stage 1, from 1872, the first line, from Tokyo to Yokohama, to the end of the Russo-Japanese war;
  Stage 2, from nationalization in 1906-07 to the end of World War II;
  Stage 3, from the postwar creation of Japanese National Railways to 1987;
  Stage 4, from privatization to the present, with JNR split between six new railway operators for passengers and one for freight.
context_section_description: 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 development of a policy for a comprehensive national network. The Japanese Government became increasingly interested in the 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 (RCA) listed a series of priority routes on Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku (Hokkaido was covered separately in 1896 legislation), 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 ~2,124km compared to the government owned sections totaling ~887 km. While this figure seemed to indicate the potential for further private funding of railway construction (notwithstanding the routes already targeted by private companies), subsequent events demonstrated otherwise.
  A two-phase approach was adopted in the RCA, with 40 routes totaling ~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 on the basis of 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 favored by the military (detailed below);
  The Ou line, also detailed below;
  Extension of the line from Tsuruga to Kanazawa and Toyama (Hokuriku Main Line) opened 1896-1899;
  A connection from the Chuo line at Shiojiri to Matsuyama and Nagano (Shinonoi Line) opened 1900-1902; and
  The original inland line from Kagoshima to Yatsushiro (now the Nippo Main Line and Hisatsu Line) opened 1901-1909
  The Chuo line, the route of which approximated the initial proposed inland line between Tokyo and Nagoya, was favored by the military as its inland alignment protected it from perceived risk of bombardment by enemy vessels. A privately built line from Shinjuku to the silk industry centre of Hachioji had opened 1889, and this became the starting point for government construction.
  The newly determined route was via Kofu (through the 4,657 m Sasago tunnel, which was the longest in Japan until the Shimizu Tunnel opened in 1931), 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 (a 44km section was built privately in 1889-1897, the remaining ~300km route opened 1914-1951 as parts of the Yosan Line, Dosan Line and Yodo Line);
  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 priv
caption: A tramcar of the former Kyoto Electric Railway, now operating in the Meiji-mura open-air museum
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2005:07:10 15:57:13", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6595", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1250", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "789"}