Abandoned Railways of Japan Wikia



Welcome to Japan's Abandoned Rail
Welcome to Japan's Abandoned Rail. You will find the railways in Japan that discontinued their services because of loss of passengers, motorization (bus replacement), or just ended up unfinished.

This wiki only contains the abandoned railways no other than in Japan. This wiki is created to look for the remains of the abolished railway lines. The wiki is still under development, so if you're interested, you can help us translate Japanese text, help designing the page, and other things you can do to improve this wiki.

Summary
More than a century ago, Japan had a great industrialization boom. The Japanese needed a faster way of transporting goods to other places. The first government-operated railway was established in Japan, the Japanese Government Railway.

In the Second World War, railways were severely damaged, mostly on the areas of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were the cities that were bombed by the US. It took several more years for the railways to fully recover. After the defeat, the lack of materials caused facilities to not be properly maintained. The lack of materials necessitated people buying in wholesale resulting in a rapid increase in passengers. Train services were further reduced due to the lack of coal. Overcrowded trains resulted in numerous accidents. In 1949, the Japanese Government Railways was reorganized by the Japanese National Railways (JNR).

Beginning in the 1950s, the electrification of trunk lines began to progress. The Tōkaidō Main Line was completely electrified in 1956. Since 1954, steam trains have been put off, with the last trains decommissioned by 1976. Many trains were converted from locomotive-hauled services to electric or diesel multiple units.

The 1960s saw great improvement in the economy, including the railways. The Tōkaidō Shinkansen, the first modern high-speed rail line, opened in 1964. Many limited express trains and overnight trains started to cross the nation, marking the golden age of railways. However, Japan began to experience motorization, and tram networks in cities were treated as obstacles to vehicles. They quickly disappeared, partly replaced by rapidly built subway networks. With the expanding economy, the number of commuters using railways rapidly increased, especially in the Greater Tokyo Area.

The cost of the campaign and the construction of Shinkansen and other lines further increased debt. Confrontation between the unions and management was serious, resulting in many strikes. To resolve the situation, JNR was privatized in 1987, and separated into seven separate companies known collectively as the Japan Railways Group (JR Group).

The Hokkaidō Railway Company, also known as JR Hokkaidō, was the company that took operations in the northern island of Hokkaidō. Freight levels began to drop and truck transport is becoming more popular and in the 1950's, freight operations were almost entirely ceased except for the most profitable ones. Motorization and rural depopulation made passenger levels to also drop. Suffering with much debt, the company decides to abolish and discontinue these magnificent railways. After that, bus companies took over most of these lines and trucks were the ones who distributed freight and cargo. All but 13 railways lines have been abolished.

We want to recall these railways, the trains that went into nowhere forests and vast fields. Let's go back in history to see the efforts of the railways serving people around Japan who were spread around and wanted to go to bigger, much better cities that they can live in.

How I can start?
Start exploring by going through some lists of defunct lines below:
 * List of defunct railway lines in Hokkaidō

Wiki status
On May 8, 2018, the bureaucrat Rgt2002 (also known as Masato) just had his last edit. I, the person who found this wiki on October 30, 2018, which is Jov, does not know when he is coming back but tries his best reviving and suport the wiki. Hoping he would come back.

Right now it is only Jov contributing for the wiki, so please do show love for this wiki. I'm busy with some things, so.