West Japan Railway Company

The West Japan Railway Company (Japanese: 西日本旅客鉄道株式会社 Nishi-Nihon Ryokaku Tetsudō Kabushiki Kaisha), officially abbreviated as JR West (Japanese: JR西日本 JR Nishi-Nihon), is the main subsidiary of the Japan Railways Group based in western Japan.
==History==
:Main article: Japan Railways Group
By the 1980s, the Japanese National Railways had become practically insolvent due to the decline of rail transport and fare increases failing to compensate for high labor costs. The Japanese National Railways was privatized and split into seven different companies on 1 April 1987, with the Japanese National Railway Settlement Corporation later formed to distribute the funds among the companies. JR West was formed from the previous JNR lines that ran around the Kansai, Chūgoku and Hokuriku regions, with its Japanese name taken from the general area of Japan where its services operate. The company became fully publicly-owned in 2004.
Kazuaki Hasegawa is JR West's current president, having served in this role since 2019.
==Network==
JR West owns 4,903.1 km (3,046.6 mi) of rail lines, including two Shinkansen lines and numerous commuter lines. Its headquarters are located in Osaka.
==Presidents==
Name 	Term start	Term end
Tatsuo Tsunoda 	1987 	1992
Masataka Ide 	1992 	1997
Shōjirō Nanya 	1997 	2003
Takeshi Kakiuchi	2003 	2006
Masao Yamazaki 	2006 	2009
Takayuki Sasaki 	2009 	2012
Seiji Manabe 	2012 	2016
Tatsuo Kijima 	2016 	2019
Kazuaki Hasegawa	2019 	Active
==Chairmen==
The role of Chairman has been vacant since 2021.
Name 	Term start	Term end
Tsutomu Murai 	1987 	1992
Tatsuo Tsunoda 	1992 	1997
Masataka Ide 	1997 	2003
Shōjirō Nanya 	2003 	2006
Noritaka Kurauchi	2006 	2012
Takayuki Sasaki 	2012 	2016
Seiji Manabe 	2016 	2021
==Trivia==
*JR West's image song is titled Towards Tomorrow. The song was composed by Takao Horiuchi.
*Various employees of JR West and its subsidiary companies make up an internal brass band.
Category:Companies