Kan'ei Horonai Tetsudō

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The Kan'ei Horonai Tetsudō ( Japanese 官 営 幌 内 鉄 道 ) was a state-owned Japanese railway company . She built the first railway lines on the island of Hokkaidō from 1880 , including part of the Hakodate main line . In 1889 the state sold the company to the Hokkaidō Tankō Tetsudō .

history

Horace Capron , an American " foreign contractor ", discovered the Horonai coal field east of what would later become the city of Iwamizawa on behalf of the Kaitakushi ( 開拓 使 ) colonization authority . To transport the coal away , he suggested building a route to the port of Muroran . His compatriot Benjamin Smith Lyman, on the other hand, preferred a much shorter route to the banks of the Ishikari near Ebetsu , where the coal was to be loaded onto barges. The swampy terrain and the freezing of the river in winter spoke against it. Eventually the government decided to modify Lyman's proposal. The route was supposed to go beyond Ebetsu to Temiya, the port of Otaru .

Construction work began in January 1880. On October 24, 1880, the first test drive with the steam locomotive Benkei (JGR class 7100) imported from the USA took place on the 4.8 km long section between the Temiya pier and the Kumasu tunnel . Traffic on the section between Temiya and Sapporo began on November 28th. Emperor Meiji went on a sightseeing tour in August 1881. On June 25, 1882, the route reached beyond Sapporo to Ebetsu. With the commissioning of the section from Ebetsu via Iwamizawa to Horonai on November 13, 1882, the project was completed.

After the dissolution of the Kaitakushi in February 1882, the Ministry of Public Works was responsible for the railway. Despite the support from the state, it was not very profitable; a small profit could only be made twice. In January 1886 the railway and the coal mines were transferred to the Hokkaidō Authority ( 北海道 庁 , Hokkaidō-chō ), which was under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior . She sold the train on December 11, 1889 to the private company Hokkaidō Tankō Tetsudō .

Route overview

The route of the Kan'ei Horonai Tetsudō consisted of the following parts of later lines:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c JNR General Directorate Hokkaidō (ed.): 北海道 鉄 道 百年 史 (100 years of Hokkaidō railway history). Sapporo 1980.
  2. ↑ Kazuo Tanaka: 写真 で 見 る 北海道 の 鉄 道 (Hokkaidō's railroad in photos) . tape 1 . Hokkaidō Shinbunsha, Sapporo 2002, ISBN 978-4-89453-220-5 , pp. 36-37 .