JAPANESE RAILWAY HISTORY 6 Upgrading Narrow Gauge Standards Shinichi Kato When the railways were nationalized Unification of standards and gauges persistently advocated by many in the between 1906 and 1907, the skeleton of was accomplished by incorporating the railway industry, and the debate spurred the nationwide trunk rail network was latest technologies. The process was con- extensive research reconfirming the dis- nearly completed, as mandated in the current with the industrial revolution in advantages of narrow gauge. In other Railway Construction Act of 1892. At the Japan, which occurred between the 1890s words, the railway authority tried to en- end of 1907, nationalized railway lines in and the 1900s, followed by the burgeoning sure the upgrading of railroad facilities by operation totalled 7,165 km. Construction of the heavy and chemical industries in adopting technical standards equivalent continued and 2,677 km of line were the 1910s. Rapid development of railway to those for standard gauge as far as pos- added by the end of 1919. In addition to technology formed an integral part of the sible within the restraints of the narrow active line expansion, the first decade af- industrialization process and boosted gauge. ter the nationalization up to the 1910s transport capacity significantly. Govern- Construction gauge, loading gauge, dis- was characterized by vigorous efforts to ment railways, a gigantic industrial cus- tance between track centres, bridge speci- improve the quality of facilities. tomer, also had an engineering arm cover- fications, and other standards were estab- The nationalization of railways was ac- ing basic research and manufacturing, lished on the basis of standard gauge. For complished by merging government- which led development of Japanese rail- example, standards for axles were owned railways and 17 private railways. way technology and modernization of the adopted to eliminate the need for replace- The facilities and equipment varied rail industry. ment, at conversion to standard gauge, widely in level of technology due to differ- which incidentally brought side benefits ent histories of imports and management Improvement of Railroad of better riding stability and comfort. policy. Some large private railways had Another notable improvement was poor facilities and equipment. In some Facilities and Equipment eliminating steep grades commonly asso- cases, different interconnected railways A major event, which undoubtedly con- ciated with Japanese railways. On the did not allow through operation of freight tributed to the development of railway Tokaido Line, for example, there were cars. Thus, technical unification was an technology in the 1910s, was the debate many sections (1 in 40) consisting of con- important goal to complete the national- on the use of standard gauge (1435 mm). tinuous 25 per mill grades, and rerouting ization, and served as the basis of further Although standard gauge was not for- was carried out to reduce them to 10 per improvement. mally adopted, it was mill (1 in 100) levels, including excavation I 9600 Locomotive (Transportation Museum) I 8620 Locomotive (Transportation Museum) Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved. 40 Japan Railway & Transport Review / December 1995 I Yasujiro Shima (1870-1946) (Transportation Museum) I Class 9900 (D50) at Yamakita Depot on Old Tokaido Route (Transportation Museum) of long tunnels. One of the most memo- Evolution of Rolling Stock Yasujiro Shima graduated in Me- rable works was construction of the Technology chanical Engineering from the Impe- Tanna Tunnel connecting Atami and rial University in 1894. Initially, he Numazu, designed to avoid the mountain At nationalization, there were approxi- worked at Kansai Railway, a major route via Hakone, which constituted the mately 2,000 locomotives of 190 models in private railway company, before na- largest bottleneck to the reduction of Japan. The majority were made in the tionalization, and then joined the gov- travel time on the Tokaido Line. Excava- USA and UK, each of which held roughly ernment railways as head of the Roll- tion of the 7,804-m tunnel faced numer- equal shares, followed by Germany (20%), ing Stock Division until the 1910s. Mr ous obstacles as it advanced through vol- and the remaining number were built do- canic zones characterized by soft forma- mestically. Their performance varied Shima was a leading figure in stan- tions and water seepage, as well as a ma- widely making it difficult to deploy them dardization of domestic locomotives, jor fault, until its completion in 1934. In according to actual needs or to develop a and the 8620 and 9600 locomotives the process, there were many sacrifices nationwide transportation system. Al- incorporated his ideas. As a vigorous and tragedies, together with heroic epi- though local works were manufacturing advocate of standard gauge, Mr sodes, which form the subject of various locomotives by the end of the 1890s, there Shima successfully conducted tests novels and dramas. Clearly, construction was still strong demand for foreign loco- on technical converting to a standard of the Tanna Tunnel stands as a mile- motives, partly because the industry gauge system in the suburbs of To- stone for major projects in pre-war Japan. could not reduce manufacturing costs by kyo. He devoted himself to upgrading On the other hand, use of heavy rails mass production because orders came national railways by implementing progressed at a much slower rate. 60- from a wide range of customers with dif- new standards under the restraints of pound (30 kg) rails were selected as stan- ferent specification. dard rails in 1906, with 75 pounds (37 kg) After nationalization, Government rail- narrow gauge. In 1918, he was ap- being used in some sections. The use of ways purchased a few large tender 2C1 pointed Chief Engineer, the highest- 100-pound (50 kg) rails had to wait until type locomotives from the UK, the USA, ranking railway engineer. In 1939, he 1922. Also, no systematic effort was made and Germany. They developed domestic spearheaded a shinkansen project to ease tight curves. standard locomotives based on these im- led by the government and developed Thus, standardization of the Japanese ports. After establishing standards and a plan for a standard-gauge high- narrow gauge rail system progressed to manufacturing methods a 1C type loco- speed rail system connecting Tokyo achieve relatively high loading gauge, motive for express passenger trains and Osaka in 4 hours and 30 minutes. while remaining structurally vulner- (Class 8620) and a 1D type locomotive for The project, held in abeyance during able in many aspects compared to inter- freight trains (Class 9600) were com- WWII, was resumed on the basis of national standards. Double tracking pleted. The 8620 was relatively small and his master plan and became reality as work was delayed, while electrification lightweight and represented a realistic of trunk lines did not progress to the full design for actual grades and curves. Its the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964. The extent. Meanwhile, to develop a compre- maximum speed was limited to 85 km/h technical manager of that project was hensive transportation system supple- based on track standards. The 9600 had a his son, Hideo Shima. menting the insufficient capacity of rail- fire box above the driving wheels provid- ways by coastal shipping, regional ports ing more tractive force from a bigger and harbours as well as water-land in- boiler. Up until 1926, 620 units of the terfaces were constructed. 8620, and 770 units of the 9600 were pro- Copyright © 1995 EJRCF. All rights reserved. Japan Railway & Transport Review / December 1995 41 JAPANESE RAILWAY HISTORY 6 model on the basis of technology from Westing-house. All freight cars were equipped with pneumatic brakes by 1930, followed by passenger cars in 1931. Simi- larly, the use of American-type automatic couplers was decided in 1919. Freight cars presented a problem for replacement be- cause they travelled all over the country and were coupled freely. It was decided to replace couplers in the field and at other sites nationwide on the same day, 17 July 1926 (20 July for Kyushu). To facilitate re- placement, automatic couplers were tem- porarily fixed to 41,661 freight cars in ad- vance and successfully took over on the preset dates. From the huge amount of work involved, it was a notable event in world rail history. I Class 18900 (C51) hauling Tsubame Test Train (Transportation Museum) duced and deployed nationwide. as the standard and existing cars were Enhancement of Railway After World War I, two new models modified to help boost transport capacity. were developed to meet rapidly-growing The shift to 15-ton cars was initiated in Facilities in Tokyo Area traffic volumes on trunk lines, the 18900 1914. Master plans for rail networks in ur- (later renamed C51) for passenger trains The government railways set a policy to banized areas of Tokyo were established and the 9900 (D50) for freight traffic. The establish technical standards for rolling under city plans in the 1880s. However, former was designed to achieve perfor- stock by joint development with manufac- the networks were incomplete at nation- mance equivalent to that available on turers who were responsible for produc- alization, and the completion and estab- standard gauge. It adopted the 2C1 axle tion, while the railway operated repair lishment of operation systems were left to layout, then standard for express passen- shops. As a result, large manufacturers the government railways. In fact, man- ger locomotives in Europe and the USA, accumulated technical and production agement policy was focussed on establish- and its driving wheels had a diameter of ability. ment and operation of nationwide rail 1750 mm, the largest of the narrow-gauge The most notable innovations improv- networks, and did not feel responsibility locomotives in the world. A total of 289 ing transportation efficiency were air for developing the public transportation units were manufactured after 1919 and brakes and automatic couplers.