Wartime Railways and Transport Policies Yasuo Wakuda
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Japanese Railwa Japanese Railway History 8 Wartime Railways and Transport Policies Yasuo Wakuda Railways cars, and establishment of their own bus tional Mobilization Law in 1938 reorga- during Sino-Japanese Conflict services. Despite such efforts, many pri- nized all industry for wartime production. vate rural lines were closed after losing Transportation demand for the war efforts Japan came into full-scale conflict with the competition with automobiles. The increased and Government and private China in 1937, but the two armies had total route length of private railways fell railways had to increase their capacities been skirmishing in northeast China and from 9730 km in 1930 to 8907 km in while suffering from shortage of materi- the Shanghai area on and off since 1931. 1940. On the other hand, the Government als. Rationing by coupon system was in- In 1932, Japan established the Manchuko Railways expanded their network from troduced in 1938 for petrol which was puppet government, causing international 14,575 km in 1930 to 18,400 km in 1940 nearly all imported. From 1941, petrol criticism. In the following year, Japan by opening new lines and nationalizing could not be used for civilian motor ve- withdrew from the League of Nations and some private railways. hicles, which had to depend on substi- became politically isolated from the rest tute fuels (charcoal, etc.). Bus routes run- of the world. The government was unable ning alongside railways were closed, and to control the military, and any criticism Mobilizing for War railways also found it hard to operate in- was violently suppressed. Soon, the coun- ternal-combustion railcars. try fell under the control of ultranational- The Sino-Japanese war started in 1937 as The competition of railways and automo- ist fanatics. an “incident,” not a declared war, but it biles, a serious problem in the mid-1930s, Despite the political instability, Japan’s spread to many parts of China. As Japan’s was no longer pressing. However, the economy recovered from the depression relations with other countries worsened, Land Transportation Coordination Law in the mid-1930s and demand for trans- she tried to seek a better position by join- was introduced in 1938 to prevent redun- portation began to grow. There was sig- ing the Nazi Germany and fascist Italy dant and wasteful investment for urban nificant technical progress and improve- Axis. Such behaviour destroyed relations transport in metropolitan areas. In the ment in railway services, although the with the USA and the UK. In 1941, Japan greater Tokyo area, buses and trams in the narrow-gauge track caused limitations. declared war against them, marking the centre came under the municipal govern- For many years, railway travellers in beginning of World War II in the Pacific ment; the newly-established Teito Rapid Japan had traveled first, second, or third arena. Transit Authority started to operate under- class, but in 1934, first class was discon- The Japanese economy came under war- ground railways, and private railways and tinued except on the Tokaido and Sanyo time controls; the introduction of the Na- buses in the suburbs were grouped into y limited expresses (and a few other express services). This left a two-class system while most of the private railways were Histor operating a single-class system. Roads were still undeveloped but motor transport began to play some role. How- ever, in 1934, there were still only 109,000 automobiles in Japan, a sharp contrast to the USA (23,827,000) and Germany (866,000). Car ownership (num- ber of automobiles per head) in Japan was less than 1% of that in the United States, and slightly higher than 10% of that in Germany. Most automobiles were buses and taxis, and the growth of road trans- port businesses using these vehicles cast long shadows over short-distance railway transportation. The primary countermeasures taken by railways included frequent operation of short trains by introducing gasoline rail- Kiha-41000 Gasoline Railcar (Transportation Museum) y 32 Japan Railway & Transport Review • November 1996 Copyright © 1996 EJRCF. All rights reserved. (Transportation Museum) I Kaichiro Nezu (1860-1940) Kaichiro Nezu played a leading role in the field of private railways after main-line com- Construction of Kanmon Undersea Tunnel (Transportation Museum) panies were nationalized. He was the president of Tobu Railway in Tokyo and the four companies by legislation. The law coastal cargo shipments were to be sent chairman of Nankai Railway in Osaka. He failed to implement complete integration by rail. This became a reality when Japan’s was called the “Railway King” because of of urban transport, overground and un- first undersea tunnel, the Kanmon Tunnel, his connections with many railway com- derground. The suburban EMU services was completed connecting the islands of panies throughout Japan. After the open- of the Government Railways were left out. Honshu and Kyushu. Until then, the two ing of Tobu Railway in 1899 using steam locomotives, Nezu completed its network Similar integration was implemented for islands were connected by ferry for both connecting Tokyo with several cities about private railways and buses in several ar- passengers and freight. But the ferry ca- 100-km north of Tokyo and it was electri- eas other than Tokyo. pacity had become saturated and con- fied in the 1920s. The new line opened in An urgent need at that time was to struction of the undersea tunnel (two 1929 between Tokyo and Nikko, was a typi- strengthen the transport link to the Asian single lines) was started in 1936. One of cal inter-urban route patronized by many continent. A decision was made in 1939 the two tunnels was completed in 1942 tourists, both domestic and foreign. After to build a new standard-gauge railway and started serving freight trains in July, his death, his son (Kaichiro Jr.) succeeded called the “New Trunk Line” (shinkansen) and passenger trains in November. The as president in 1941 and is still with the from Tokyo to Shimonoseki at the west- new tunnel played an important role in company (as Chairman). At the time of the ern tip of Honshu island. Construction had sending coal from Kyushu to Osaka and transport coordination in the early 1940s, just started when the entire project was other industrial areas. The second tunnel Tobu consolidated several railway and bus companies in the areas northeast of To- suspended by the war. It was more than was completed in September 1944 and kyo. Today, the company plays a major role 25 years later, in 1964, that JNR actually the section became double-tracked. in transporting commuters to Tokyo. started shinkansen services using some Transportation between Honshu and land purchased much earlier for the pro- Hokkaido, another coal producing area, posed “Bullet Train” right-of-way. had to rely on the ferry connecting Aomori and Hakodate. Many new train ferries dard freight locomotive, the D51 class 2- Railway Transportation were built for this route. At the same time, 8-2 tender, had been introduced in 1936. in the War improvement of trunk lines in northern This class continued to be built during the Honshu and Hokkaido, such as easement war to a wartime austerity design using Mainland Japan did not immediately be- of gradients and installation of passing substitute materials. A total of 1115 units come a battleground. However, after Pearl loops on the single-track sections, was were built, marking the largest number of Harbor, the country’s land transport sys- urged. steam locomotives of a single class in Ja- tems were put under emergency controls. New production of rolling stock centered pan. A new and more powerful model, In addition to the reinforcement of regu- on freight locomotives and freight cars to the D52 class 2-8-2 tender, was intro- lated transportation, a new policy was increase the country’s freight transport duced in 1943 based on an even more introduced by which coal and other capacity. The Government Railways’ stan- austere design. Copyright © 1996 EJRCF. All rights reserved. Japan Railway & Transport Review • November 1996 33 Japanese Railway History 8 munications in charge of communica- tions, shipping and civil aviation. In No- vember 1943, the Ministry of Transport and Communications was established as part of the wartime government aimed at unification of land and sea transportation. The Communication Agency of the new ministry became independent in May 1945, after which the Ministry of Trans- port and Communications was reorga- nized as the Ministry of Transport. Al- though the name is the same as today’s Ministry of Transport, the Ministry at that time also operated the Government Rail- ways directly. The General Railway Bu- High-sided Six-wheel Open Toki-900 Wagon (Transportation Museum) reau of the Ministry served this special role. Standard freight cars built in the wartime supplement trunk-line networks. By 1945, were the high-sided six-wheel open the total route length of the Government wagon of the Toki-900 type. It was de- Railways had increased to 19,620 km, From War to Defeat signed to implement a bogie-class pay- while that of the private railways had load with minimum construction material decreased to only 7522 km. Mainland Japan was first attacked by the while reducing overall length. In addition, Transportation had been under the con- Allies in April 1942. Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe a special measure called “extra-tonnage” trol of two ministries: The Ministry of Rail- and other cities were raided by B25 bomb- was introduced for existing freight cars, ways in charge of railway operation, and ers from an aircraft carrier. By June 1944, allowing temporary overloading of the supervision of private railways and land the northern part of Kyushu was bombed original payload.