Japan Freight Railway Company

Japan Freight Railway Company 日本 貨物 鉄 道 株式会社
legal form	Kabushiki kaisha (joint stock company)
founding	April 1, 1987
Seat	5-33-8, Sendagaya , Shibuya , Tokyo Prefecture
management	Shuji Tamura (President)
Number of employees	5,725
Branch	Rail freight transport , combined transport , warehousing
Website	www.jrfreight.co.jp
As of April 1, 2015

The Nippon Kamotsu Tetsudō KK ( Japanese 日本 貨物 鉄 道 株式会社 , short JR 貨物 , jeiāru kamotsu ; English Japan Freight Railway Company , short JR Freight or JRF ) is one of the seven successor companies of the Japanese National Railways .

It was founded on April 1, 1987 in the course of the privatization of the railway sector in Japan and operates nationwide rail freight transport . It is 100% owned by a self-governing body ( dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin ) under MLIT supervision, the tetsudō kensetsu un'yu shisetsu seibi shien kikō ( 鉄 道 建設 ・ 運輸 施 設 整 備 支援 機構 , lit. Preservation of Railway Construction and Traffic ”, Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency ).

Company figures

The JR Freight operates a route network of around 8,200 km with 243 stations . An average of 479 trains are on the move every day . These cover 193,000 train km per day and provide a transport performance of 20.7 billion ton-km per year. A total of 30.3 million tons of goods were transported (as of April 1, 2015).

Route network

Umeda freight yard in Osaka, June 2011

JR Freight only has around 50 km of its own route network . This mainly consists of connecting lines to the company's individual freight stations . These are connected to the approximately 19,800 km long route network of the six regional Japan Railways companies operating in passenger transport , which is shared by JR Freight. This route network is kept in Cape gauge and electrified with 1,500 V DC , 20 kV, 50 Hz and 60 Hz AC . The Shinkansen - high-speed network in standard gauge is not currently busy. With the start of Shinkansen traffic through the Seikan Tunnel in 2016, this section of the route will be the first with Shinkansen / freight train mixed traffic .

List of railway lines owned by JR Freight

line	route	prefecture	Distance (km)
Hokuriku main line	Tsuruga - Tsuruga-Minato	Fukui	2.7
Kagoshima main line	Kashii - Fukuoka Freight Station	Fukuoka	2.2
Kansai main line	Yokkaichi - Shiohama	Mie	3.3
	Hirano - Kudara	Osaka	1.4
Ōu main line	Tsuchizaki - Akitakō	Akita	1.8
Senseki line	Rikuzen-Yamashita - Ishinomakikō	Miyagi	1.8
Shin'etsu main line	Kami-Nuttari - Higashi-Niigatakō signal box	Niigata	3.8
Shinminato line	Nomachi - Takaoka Freight Station	Toyama	1.9
Main Tōkaidō line	Sannō – Nagoya-Minato signal box	Aichi	6.2
	Suita – Osaka Kamotsu Terminal signal box	Osaka	8.7
Uetsu main line	Sakata - Sakatakō	Yamagata	2.7

Rolling stock

JR Freight Class EH200 with a freight train in July 2004

Due to the different power systems in Japan, JR Freight has locomotives for direct current, alternating current and multi-system vehicles . The company owns a total of 442 electric locomotives , 175 diesel locomotives and 42 railcars . It also owns 7,472 container wagons and 79 other freight wagons . 1,869 freight wagons from other companies are managed by JR Freight (as of April 1, 2015). Part of this rolling stock was taken over by JNR. In some cases, modern vehicles were also purchased. With its locomotive-hauled trains, JR Freight plays a special role in rail transport in Japan, which is characterized by multiple units. Until 2010, it was the only successor company to JNR that had put new locomotives into service since privatization in 1987. These have been the EF200 electric locomotives since 1990, the DF 200 diesel locomotives since 1992, the EF210 electric locomotives since 1996 and the EH500 one year later . In 2001, two new series, the EH200 and EF510 electric locomotives, were put into service. A variant of the latter was taken over by JR East in 2010 as passenger locomotives for the later discontinued night train service. In the same year, JR Freight put its first hybrid locomotive into service, the HD300 .

• Diesel locomotives
  • JNR: DD51 , DE10 , DE11
  • JR: DF200, HD300, DD200
• DC - Electric Locomotives
  • JNR: EF64 , EF65 , EF66 , EF67
  • JR: EF200, EF210 , EH200
• AC - Electric Locomotives
  • JNR: ED76 , EH800
• Multi-system electric locomotives
  • JNR: EF81
  • JR: EF510, EH500
• Freight railcar M250
• Freight wagons with a capacity of up to 36 tons
• Freight wagons for automobiles , trucks and containers
• Large freight cars with a capacity of up to 80 tons
• Coal and bulk wagons

A "Train on Train" mockup at Naebo Station, Sapporo in October 2008

New vehicle developments

With the opening of the Hokkaidō Shinkansen from Aomori to Hokuto in 2015, the Seikan tunnel will no longer be usable for the currently moving slow freight trains due to a lack of routes . The JR Hokkaidō and the JR Freight are therefore working on concepts for 200 km / h high- speed freight trains . These should be able to use the route together with the Shinkansen trains in mixed traffic. The EH800 high-speed locomotive is being developed for this purpose , which will then pull the so-called Train on Train ( ト レ イ ン ・ オ ン ・ ト レ イ ン , Torein on Torein , German: "Train drives train"). This project envisages that the Cape Gauge trains, similar to the trolley system , run on a standard gauge, fully clad carriage train. This protects the load from the pressure fluctuations caused by oncoming rail vehicles in the tunnel.

Transport goods

Goods transported in 2014 in million t

in million t

year	1987	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Freight volume (total)	56.27	37.05	37.11	36.61	36.19	33.08	31.05	30.98	29.83	29.99	31.00	30.31
of which containers	13.81	21.98	22.35	23.18	23.41	22.17	20.35	20.47	19.61	20.51	21.51	21.54
of which bulk goods	42.46						10.70	10.51	10.22	09.47	09.49	08.76

The freight volume of JR Freight has been falling for years. If 56.3 million tons of freight were transported in 1987, the year it was founded, it was only 37.1 million tons in 2005 and slightly over 30 million tons in 2014. Conversely, the containerization rate increased significantly. While only 25% of the volume of goods was moved in the container in the year of establishment, it was already 60% in 2005 and 71% in 2014. For this traffic, JR Freight has a total of 66,900 of its own and 17,751 private containers specially suitable for the Japanese clearance profile .

In 2014, mineral oil and products dominated bulk goods with 65%.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} JR Freight: Corporate Overview ( Memento of the original dated February 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ New Bullet Train for New Frontier. In: NHK World . March 24, 2016, accessed on October 19, 2016 : “The tunnel is vital for freight traffic to and from Hokkaido, with 51 freight trains passing through it every day. The tunnel will have to be shared by the Shinkansen and the conventional freight trains. " 
3. ↑ The Asahi Shimbun: "Research to look into feasibility of 200-kph cargo train" ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} JR Approved: Main Data ( Memento of the original dated May 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ JR Freigt: Main Data ( Memento from May 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Category: JR Freight  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files