page_title: South Manchuria Railway
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: South Manchuria Railway / History
caption_attribution_description: Trial run of South Manchuria Railway Pashina-Class Locomotive No. 973
context_page_description: The South Manchuria Railway, officially South Manchuria Railway Company, or 滿鐵 for short, was a large National Policy Company of the Empire of Japan whose primary function was the operation of railways on the Dalian–Fengtian –Changchun corridor in northeastern China, as well as on several branch lines.
  In 1905, after Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, this area was taken over by Japan as the South Manchuria Railway Zone. Mantetsu was established in 1906 to operate the railways taken over from the Russians. Subsequently, Mantetsu expanded by building new lines for itself and for Chinese-owned undertakings, and after the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo was established in 1932, it was also entrusted with the management of the Manchukuo National Railway. Between 1917 and 1925, Mantetsu was also responsible for the management of the Chosen Government Railway in Japanese-occupied Korea.
  However, it was also involved in nearly every aspect of the economic, cultural and political life of Manchuria, from power generation to agricultural research, for which reason it was often referred to as "Japan's East India Company in China".
context_section_description: The main line from Changchun to Port Arthur, as Luishun was called under Russian rule, was built between 1898 and 1903 by the Russians as the southern branch of their Chinese Eastern Railway according to the 1896 secret treaty and the 1898 lease convention between Qing China and Imperial Russia in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War.
  Following the Japanese victory over Imperial Russia in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War and the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, most of the southern branch (Harbin—Port Arthur) of the China Eastern Railway was transferred to Japanese control.  The last station remaining in Russian hands was at Kuanchengzi (寬城子) in modern-day Changchun.  The northernmost Japanese-controlled station was the Changchun railway station.
  Under the authorization of Emperor Meiji, Japan then established a new semi-privately held company, the South Manchurian Railway Company (a.k.a. Mantetsu), with a capitalization of 200 million yen to operate the railroad and to develop settlements and industries along its route.  The organizing committee was headed by General Kodama Gentarō, and after his death, by General Terauchi Masatake.  Count Gotō Shimpei, formerly the Japanese governor of Taiwan, was appointed the first president of the company, and the headquarters was established in Tokyo before relocated to Dalian in 1907.
  One of the first tasks of the new company was to change the railway gauge.  The rail line was originally built according to the gauge of 5 ft (1,524 mm), during the war it had been converted by the advancing Japanese troops to the Japanese 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge, in order to facilitate the use of rolling stock brought from Japan. But once the new Japanese South Manchuria Railway Company took possession of the line, it had the tracks re-gauged again, now to the gauge of 4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in (1,435 mm) standard gauge, presumably with an eye to connecting the system to other railways of China.
  In 1907, an agreement was reached between the Japanese and Russian authorities about connecting the Japanese South Manchuria Railway with the line to the north, which remained in the hands of Russian China Far East Railway. According to the agreement, Russian gauge tracks would continue from the "Russian" Kuanchengzi Station to the "Japanese" Changchun station, and vice versa, tracks on the "gauge adapted by the South Manchuria Railway" (i.e., the standard gauge) would continue from the Changchun Station to the Kuancheng Station.
  By the end of 1907, the company employed 9,000 Japanese and 4,000 Chinese. By 1910, those numbers had increased to 35,000 and 25,000 respectively. The railway used a significant amount of U.S.-made rails and signaling equipment, as well as some steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company at Dunkirk, NY. A visiting executive from the Erie Railroad was quite impressed with the arrangement, and described South Manchurian Railway ca. 1913 as "the only railroad in the whole world that is like our American railroads (and they are, fairly speaking, the best)".
  Mantetsu quickly expanded the system inherited from Russia to staggering proportions, building coal mines at Fushun and Yantai, and harbor facilities at Andong, Yingkou, and Dalian. At each station, Mantetsu built hotels for travelers and warehouses for goods. Japanese settlers were encouraged through the construction of schools, libraries, hospitals and public utilities. The Mantetsu Research Wing was the centerpiece of Japan's colonial program, and instigated agricultural research into development of soybean farming. Land under cultivation expanded 70% in 20 years.
  From 1916, Mantestu began to spin off a number of subsidiary companies, including Showa Steel Works, Dalian Ceramics, Dalian Oil & Fat, South Manchurian Glass, as well as flour mills, sugar mills, electrical power plants, shale oil plants and chemical plants.
  On 31 July 1917, the management of the Chosen Government Railway (Sentetsu) in Japanese-occupied Korea was transferred from the Railway Bureau of the Government-General of Korea to Mantetsu, which
caption: Locomotive for Asia Express
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