Japan has a huge amount of different railway companies, contributing to its sheer variety of trains. The biggest and most important of these is the national railway.
National Railways
The history of the national railway network of Japan is split up into three distinct eras, reflected by the entities that operated them.
JGR (Japanese Government Railways)
Also known as the Ministry of Railways, this was the government railway agency of Japan from the dawn of railways in 1871, up to its abolition in 1949.
In the early days, it operated alongside a multitude of private railways, but many of these were nationalised and absorbed into the JGR in 1907.
JNR (Japanese National Railways)
JNR was the state-owned railway company of Japan from 1949 until 1987. They introduced many modernisations including the famous Shinkansen high-speed rail network. However the company’s increasing debt caused it to be privatised and broken up.
JR Group (Japan Railways Group)
JR Group is comprised of multiple private companies, each operating a different part of Japan’s national railway network. These are:
- JR East
- JR West
- JR Central
- JR Hokkaido
- JR Shikoku
- JR Kyushu
- JR Freight
The split and privatisation resulted in each company developing its own corporate identity, contributing to the huge variety of trains seen in Japan today.
Private Companies
In addition to the national network, Japan has a multitude of private railway companies that operate everything from tiny port branchlines, to sprawling interurban and metro networks. Sometimes these are integrated into the national narrow gauge network, other times they are completely separate networks, often even using a different track gauge.
This is a non-comprehensive list of private companies featured in the JP+ Project:
- Kintetsu
- Meitetsu
- Odakyu
- Tobu
- Keikyu
- Hankyu
- Keisei
- Seibu
- Sotetsu
- Tokyo Metro
Metro Companies
These are usually operated by the local municipality of the city they serve.
- Toei Subway
- Osaka Metro