---
title: "A history of Japan's railways: from Shimbashi in 1872 to the JR companies"
description: "Japan's first railway opened between Shimbashi and Yokohama in 1872. How private companies, the nationalization of 1906, the national railway and the 1987 breakup shaped the network."
url: https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/japan-railway-history
language: en
published: 2026-11-11
category: "Travel basics › Rail travel"
tags: ["RailwayHistory", "TrainTravel"]
author: "Oginoya Editorial Team"
publisher: "Oginoya Co., Ltd."
translations:
  zh-TW: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-tw/articles/japan-railway-history
  ko: https://kama-meshi.com/ko/articles/japan-railway-history
  zh-CN: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-cn/articles/japan-railway-history
  zh-HK: https://kama-meshi.com/zh-hk/articles/japan-railway-history
  th: https://kama-meshi.com/th/articles/japan-railway-history
  de: https://kama-meshi.com/de/articles/japan-railway-history
  fr: https://kama-meshi.com/fr/articles/japan-railway-history
  es: https://kama-meshi.com/es/articles/japan-railway-history
---

# A history of Japan's railways: from Shimbashi in 1872 to the JR companies

![A three-panel woodblock print titled 東京名勝高縄鉄道之圖: a steam locomotive and carriages on a stone embankment in a bay, with rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages and people on the shore road in front and ships offshore](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/takanawa-railway-print-1871.Bu9r3MU1_ZispEE.webp)

Japan's railways began with a 29-kilometer government line between Shimbashi in Tokyo and Yokohama, opened on October 14, 1872. Private companies then built many of the main lines, the state bought those lines in 1906 and 1907, and the national railway ran the network until April 1, 1987, when it was divided into the JR companies.

## British loans, British engineers

In 1869 the Meiji government decided to build railways itself: a trunk line between Tokyo and Kyoto and three branches, one of them from Tokyo to Yokohama. Lacking money and engineers, the government raised a loan of one million pounds in Britain, put 300,000 pounds of that into the railway, and hired British engineers, while keeping control of the project.

The survey started from Shiodome in 1870 under Edmund Morel, a British engineer, who died of illness in 1871, before the line opened. The government chose a narrow gauge, with rails 1,067 millimeters apart, because it cost less to build and was easier to extend. At Takanawa the track was laid on an embankment built in the sea, where no land had to be acquired. The print above, made by Utagawa Hiroshige III in 1871, shows that embankment.

Trains began running between Shinagawa and Yokohama on June 12, 1872, and on October 14 [the whole line from Shimbashi opened](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/ginza-shimbashi) with a ceremony attended by Emperor Meiji. The 29 kilometers took 53 minutes. Ten steam locomotives were imported from Britain for the opening.

![A small black tank locomotive with a tall chimney, a brass dome and a red buffer beam, displayed indoors on a short length of track](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/locomotive-no1-railway-museum-2015.HUzWMjER_1kgTzU.webp "Locomotive No. 1, built by the Vulcan Foundry in Britain in 1871, at the Railway Museum in Saitama, 2015. It was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1997.")

## Seventeen years to Kobe

A second line opened between Osaka and Kobe in 1874 and reached Kyoto in 1877. The Satsuma Rebellion of that year strained the treasury, and construction stalled.

The trunk line between Tokyo and Kyoto was first planned along the Nakasendō, through the mountains of central Japan. The mountain sections proved harder than expected, and in 1886 the route was changed to follow the Tōkaidō, along the Pacific coast. On July 1, 1889, the line was complete from Shimbashi to Kobe. A through train took about 20 hours. Travelers in the Edo period (1603–1868) had taken about two weeks to walk from Edo, now Tokyo, to Kyoto.

One section of the Nakasendō route had already been built. The state line from Takasaki reached Yokokawa on October 15, 1885, and [Oginoya](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/oginoya-history) began selling rice balls at the station that day. The line [over the Usui Pass to Karuizawa](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/yokokawa-usui) followed in 1893.

## Private companies take the lead

Short of money, the government turned to private capital. Japan's first private railway company, the Nippon Railway, was founded in 1881 with money from former feudal lords and court nobles. The state built its lines on its behalf and guaranteed its dividend. The first section, from Ueno in Tokyo to Kumagaya, opened in July 1883, and the following year's accounts showed a profit on that section of more than a tenth of what it had cost to build.

In July 1885 the Nippon Railway's line reached Utsunomiya, where the rice balls counted as [the first ekiben](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/ekiben-history) were sold at the station. In September 1891 the line reached Aomori, at the northern end of Honshu.

The Nippon Railway's success set off a rush. By 1892 nearly 50 private railway companies had been formed, and in fiscal 1890 private railways had 1,366 kilometers of line against the state's 886. The San'yō Railway built west from Kobe and reached Shimonoseki in 1901. Competing with the steamers of the Inland Sea, the San'yō Railway [coupled Japan's first dining car to an express](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/eating-on-trains) in May 1899.

## 1906: the state buys the main lines

At the end of 1905 the private railways had about twice the route length of the state's. The army wanted the lines unified for military transport, and business leaders, in the recession years after 1897, wanted the state to buy out struggling companies. The Railway Nationalization Act was promulgated in March 1906. By 1907, 17 major private railways, the Nippon and the San'yō among them, belonged to the state, which then held more than nine-tenths of the country's route length. The same year, 1906, brought [the first express charge](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/japanese-train-categories), on the fastest train between Shimbashi and Kobe.

The law left private companies the railways that served a single district, and around the cities they built electric lines; the forerunner of Hankyu Railway opened in 1910.

## The national railway and the Shinkansen

On June 1, 1949, the railway that government offices had run directly since 1872 was reorganized as a public corporation, Japanese National Railways, or JNR.

In 1955 railways carried 82 percent of Japan's passenger traffic and 53 percent of its freight. By 1958 the Tōkaidō Main Line carried 24 percent of JNR's passengers and had no capacity left. JNR built a new line apart from the old network, on the standard gauge of 1,435 millimeters: [the Tōkaidō Shinkansen](https://kama-meshi.com/en/articles/what-is-shinkansen), opened between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka on October 1, 1964.

In 1964 JNR also ran its first deficit, and a deficit followed every year afterward. As cars, coastal shipping and aircraft took traffic, the railways' share fell by 1975 to 45.6 percent of passengers and 13.1 percent of freight.

## April 1, 1987: the JR companies

In 1982 a government commission proposed that JNR be privatized and divided by region, and on April 1, 1987, JNR was divided and privatized. Six new companies took over the passenger railways: JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Kyushu, one for each of those islands, and JR East, JR Central and JR West on Honshu. A seventh, JR Freight, runs freight trains nationwide on track rented from the passenger companies. JNR's debt had reached 37.1 trillion yen. JNR had 277,000 employees in 1986, and the new companies took on 201,000 of them.

![A black-and-white photograph of a commuter train at a station platform, with the sign 山手線 YAMANOTE LINE above its windshield and a plate on its front reading 1987 3月31日 さようなら JNR 日本国有鉄道](https://kama-meshi.com/_astro/jnr-farewell-headmark-103-1987.NeEBy_VS_2gwAqn.webp "A Yamanote Line train at Tokyo Station on March 29, 1987. The plate on its front reads “March 31, 1987. Goodbye, Japanese National Railways.”")

Under the arrangements made in 1987, the fare for a journey across several JR companies was calculated as a single journey, and any station could sell tickets for the other companies' lines.

October 14, the day the first line opened in 1872, has been kept as an anniversary since 1922 and called Railway Day since 1994.

## References

- [Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism: History of Japan's Railways (PDF)](https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000218983.pdf)
- [Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism: The Reform of Japanese National Railways](https://www.mlit.go.jp/tetudo/kaikaku/01.htm)
- [National Diet Library: Kaleidoscope of Books no. 32, What the Railway Changed](https://www.ndl.go.jp/kaleido/entry/32/1.html)
- [National Archives of Japan: Japan's First Railway, the Opening between Shimbashi and Yokohama](https://www.archives.go.jp/learning/archive_collection_3/collection_5/)
- [National Archives of Japan: July 1889, the Tōkaidō Line Opens along Its Full Length](https://www.archives.go.jp/ayumi/kobetsu/m22_1889_02.html)
- [Agency for Cultural Affairs, Cultural Heritage Online: Locomotive No. 1](https://online.bunka.go.jp/heritages/detail/187782)
- [Kotobank: “Railway” (Japanese encyclopedias)](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%89%84%E9%81%93-101119)
- [Kotobank: “Railway Nationalization Act”](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%89%84%E9%81%93%E5%9B%BD%E6%9C%89%E6%B3%95-334846)
- [Kotobank: “Nippon Railway Company”](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E9%89%84%E9%81%93%E4%BC%9A%E7%A4%BE-350699)
- [Kotobank: “Japanese National Railways”](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%9B%BD%E6%9C%89%E9%89%84%E9%81%93-110164)
- [Kotobank: “Tōkaidō Main Line”](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9D%B1%E6%B5%B7%E9%81%93%E6%9C%AC%E7%B7%9A-103197)
- [Oginoya: Company timeline](https://www.oginoya.co.jp/tougenokamameshi/history/)

Image credits (resized for display):

- [Utagawa Hiroshige III (1842–1894) / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokyo_Famous_Takanawa_Railway_print.webp), Public domain, 1871
- [掬茶 (Kikucha) / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JGR_class_150_steam_locomotive_at_the_Railway_Museum.jpg), [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), 2015
- [Shellparakeet / Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:103_headsign_of_jnr(2).jpg), [CC0](http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en), 1987