japan rail gauge

Two or three years after the opening of the first standard-gauge line, it became apparent that although standard gauge was fine for a main international line, it would be very uneconomical to lay standard-gauge track in the mountainous areas. Japan's railways were originally built to narrow gauge with the rails 3' 6\" apart, and today a comprehensive network of these lines covers the whole country, linking cities, towns and even villages,see a rail map of Japan here. the "Tōzai Line" means the East-West Line). In post-war Japan, the Japanese government encouraged private corporations to develop their own mass transit systems in order to quickly rebuild the country's urban transport networks.[10]. Thus, if riding the shinkansen, for instance, rather than purchasing a single shinkansen ticket, one purchases two tickets: a fare ticket (乗車券) for the distance traveled, and an additional shinkansen ticket (新幹線特急券, shinkansen tokkyūken, shinkansen special express ticket) to allow one to ride the shinkansen for that distance, rather than ordinary trains. Rail transport services in Japan are provided by more than 100 private companies, including. [22] Platform edge doors are also being installed at numerous stations in an effort to keep people contained on the platform until the train arrives.[23]. Other notable crimes staged in railway facilities in Japan include the assassination of the Prime Minister Hara Takashi in Tokyo Station in 1921, the deliberate train wreck at Mitaka Station in 1949 and the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995. Norway gradually replaced its narrow gauge track with standard gauge but Japan did not take this road because of economic and military considerations. Frequency of AC power supply is 50 Hz in eastern Japan and 60 Hz in western Japan. Outlying and suburban areas are served by seven private railway companies, whose lines intersect at major stations with the subway system. The first pre-packed station lunchboxes originated at Utsunomiya Station in 1885 and became an instant success. The national railway network was started and has been expanded with the narrow 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge. I was invited to the publishing party on the book's completion and while glancing through my copy I came across the above sentence. The deceased's family may be charged damages on the order of approximately 1 million yen by railway operating companies. Until the mid-1850s, a railway builder could only choose between standard gauge and broad gauge, explaining why standard gauge was called narrow gauge in those days! Inoue studied civil and railway engineering at University College in London and returned to Japan in 1868 to become Japan's first railway expert. There are 45° shock absorbers between the bogies and axle boxes and the axles appear to shift laterally as the train passes a curve. Surely, I thought, more can be said on the subject than just that. The cheap-to-build narrow gauge was probably the only option considered at the time. Pihl seems to have decided that the gauge of 3'3" or so were too narrow and settled on the 3'6" gauge, the first time the gauge had been used for a passenger line. Early steam engines were huge. Norway still has one 3'6" line in operation—part of the former Setesdal Line near Kristiansand in southern Norway preserved as a vintage railway. ‘The reason why narrow gauge (1067 mm) was adopted for early Japanese railways is unclear.’ This is the first sentence of Chapter 6 in A History of Japanese Railways, 1872–1999 written by four well-known specialists in Japanese railways and published in English by EJRCF. This refers to a kiseru, a smoking pipe that has a long hollow section made of bamboo between the bowl (where the smoke enters) and the mouthpiece (where it leaves) made of metal. Cape Gauge is very close to the Metre-Gauge that many of the secondary lines in France. Other lines including the Sekihoku Main Line, Senmo Main Line, the Nayoro - Wakkanai section of the Soya Line and Kushiro - Nemuro section of the Nemuro Line are proposed for conversion to Third Sector operation, but if local governments are not agreeable, such sections will also face closure. There are still some loud complaints about the problems caused by Japan's adoption of the 3'6" narrow gauge but it is simplistic to say that if Japanese railways had switched to standard gauge they would have immediately enjoyed greater capacity and speed. When the Norwegian government indicated that it was not going to invest in railway construction, local citizens raised the funds through bonds. Plan your Japan rail trip with Japan Rail Planner. Norway's rail technology and locomotives came from Britain, so it is natural that the railway consultants in Britain's colonies were extremely interested in transportation developments there. In short, the fare ticket allows access to the train platforms at entrance and exit, where it is inspected by the gate or attendant at the station, while the express ticket allows one to ride an express train over the interval and is inspected by a conductor on the train. The only double-tracked sections are commuter lines and the rail link from Oslo to Oslo Airport. Countries with vast rural areas were also interested. At the end of the 1860s, who would have thought that Japan would become a major economic power? Since express trains are not separated by special gates from ordinary trains, express service requires manual inspection of tickets by a conductor, and express tickets can be purchased from the conductor. In principle a fare is pre-charged and a ticket is issued in exchange for a payment of fare. Recently, the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge freight railway network (partially electrified with 25 kV AC) is proposed for Hokkaido, Honshu and the northernmost Kyushu (Kanmon strait - Hakata). All the railway and tram lines in Japan are named by the operators. [19] However, some argue that railway staff are under too much pressure from the public. [11], As such, through diversification of their business, the majority of the private railways in Japan are financially independent and their railway operations are usually profitable, in sharp contrast to most transit networks in other countries. Passengers refer the railway by the name of line (e.g. He had a possible choice of two narrow gauges: the 3'6" narrow gauge or the meter narrow gauge. In 1863, the same year that British railway engineers first became interested in narrow-gauge railway developments in Norway and the year that the 2' gauge Festiniog Railway began steam operations, Inoue left Japan in secret with four friends bound for England. Clearly, the cheaper narrow gauge would have offered advantages to the builders partly because of Norway's difficult topography with many mountains, lakes and fjords and partly because of its backward economy. You can buy the Japan Rail Pass online at Voyagin.com which is an official partner of JR Rail. Developing a locomotive capable of pulling such a load up this grade on such a narrow gauge took 3 years. "Hanshin"). The fare ticket is valid regardless of number of transfers. Vice Minister of Finance Okuma had no first-hand knowledge of track gauges and surely had no option but to accept Inoue's recommendation. The Japanese language has a number of expressions for unlawfully riding trains without paying the correct fare. More than sixty additional kilometers of subway were under construction in 1990 by the two companies. My guess is that the final decision was probably made Vice Minister of Finance Shigenobu Okuma (1836–1922) in the Meiji government assisted by his interpreter, Masaru Inoue (1843–1910), the only Japanese expert in rail technology at the time. Japan’s Shinkansen lines are all built to Standard Gauge, because trains are more stable, and can go faster, on wider track. The mine owners therefore decided to mechanize the mine railway themselves to guarantee access to the nearby port. (with, Daito, Eisuke. Take a look at our sample itineraries for inspiration and guidance on your 7, 14 or 21-day journey through Japan. Japan is where regular, high-speed railways were born. In those days, the government still had not come up with its strident ‘Enrich the Country and Strengthen the Military' slogan. in respect of loading g… They had to be, because their power came from atmosphere pressures, and the only way to boost output was to increase piston area. The line names may come from a name of destination or a city along the line (e.g. [15] Asuboni Rails, 1495 mm gauge railways, List of 2 ft 3 in gauge railways, 800 mm gauge railways, 2 ft 6 in gauge railways in Japan, 2 ft gauge railways in Japan. An important aspect of the romance of the rails in Japan is the ekiben, the station bento lunchbox. They are defined by the Act as follows:[16]. It’s also the case that Standard Gauge, while common in modern English-speaking countries, only accounts for a little more than half the rail-miles (or rail-km) in use today, and had a lesser share in the past. The Central Committee of the Japanese Association of Railroad Station Concessionaires (社団法人日本鉄道構内営業中央会) is a prominent trade organization promoting ekiben. Norway only became fully independent from Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century and was nominally under Sweden's control when Stephenson and Pihl brought the first rail technology to the country. Pihl studied engineering at Chalmers Institute (now Chalmers University of Technology) at Gothenberg in Sweden and then went to England and apprenticed himself to Robert Stephenson (1803–59). Interactive and PDF downloadable maps to help you plan your trip to Japan. Japanese trains shame British . However, the first priority of the builders was to construct a link with Sweden which used the standard gauge, so Norway became standard gauge too. Much of the network is electrified, and even on … Just as interest in narrow-gauge railways was rising, Englishman Robert Fairlie (1831–85) demonstrated how the B+B steam locomotive he had invented could boost carrying capacity on the Festiniog Railway. Its relative popularity is partly due to its practical ease, and to avoid causing a nuisance to one's family, although families are often charged or sued by the railway companies to compensate for the trouble caused by the accident. In addition to its extensive railway network, Japan has a large number of subway systems. Japan's railways carried 31 million tons (21 billion tonne-kilometres) of goods in 2013-14. One of the reasons for this situation was the sharp increase of ridership on the railways in the rapid growth of the postwar economy that could not be handled by small original railway terminals in the city center. But he was very interested in railway development and became a central figure in rail circles, offering financial backing and consensus-making expertise. Most tracks use a standard gauge of 1,435 mm (4 ft, 8 1/2 in). The 20- to 25-kg rails can accommodate an axle load of 6 tonnes and are so thin that the gauge appears wider than it is. Gauge, also called Railway Gauge, in railroad transportation, the width between the inside faces of running rails.Because the cost of construction and operation of a rail line is greater or less depending on the gauge, much controversy has surrounded decisions in respect to it, and a proliferation of gauges has developed throughout the world. 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