Ministry of Railways (Japan)

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The Japanese Ministry of Railways ( Japanese 鉄道省 Tetsudo-shō , English Ministry of Railways , Japanese Government Railways , Imperial Japanese Government Railways or Imperial Government Railways ) was a Ministry of the central government , which in the Japanese Empire was responsible for the operation of the state railways.

It was set up in 1920 as the successor to Naikaku Tetsudō-in ( 内閣 鉄 道 院 , "Railway Office of the Cabinet"). In 1943 it was merged in the Pacific War under the government of Tōjō Hideki with the Teishin-shō ( 逓 信 省 , "Ministry of Communication") to form the "Ministry of Transport and Communication" ( Un'yu-Tsūshin-shō ) .

history

Tetsudō-shō logo on a railroad car.
Motoda Hajime , first Minister of Railways in 1920

The first railway lines of Japan on the east coast ( Tōkaidō main line ) were built under the aegis of the Kōbu-shō ( 工部 省 , "Ministry of Public Works") with foreign support. After its dissolution, the responsibility for the railways lay first with the Cabinet established in 1885 , then with the Ministry of the Interior and finally with the "Ministry of Communications", which in 1907 set up the "Authority for the Railways of the Empire" ( 帝国 鉄 道 庁 , Teikoku Tetsudō-chō ) as an office.

After a phase towards the end of the 19th century when the Japanese government supported the establishment of private railways, the Railway Nationalization Act of 1906 (after the wars against China and Russia ) resulted in the main lines of the Japanese railway network (around 7,150 km) were in state hands - originally, a period of ten years was planned for the nationalization of 17 companies. However, the relatively high takeover prices led to a rapid transfer to state ownership. In 1908, the Naikaku Tetsudō-in (mostly just: Tetsudō-in) was set up, which was upgraded to a ministry in 1920 under the government of Hara Takashi . The responsible rail minister was henceforth a minister in the Japanese cabinet.

The Tetsudō-shō was responsible for both the operation of the existing state lines and the expansion and modernization of the route network. It also oversaw the private railroad companies. Six regional offices were set up in Sapporo , Sendai , Tōkyō , Nagoya , Kobe (later: Ōsaka) and Moji . The lines operated by the ministry were referred to as shō-sen ( 省 線 ), "ministerial lines".

After the party governments of the 1920s had initially encouraged the parallel expansion of private railways, a wave of nationalization began again in the 1930s against the background of military expansion on the mainland and the intensified domestic political climate: in 1930 the state network had a length of 14,575 km, in addition, there were around 9,700 km of private railways. While the private network shrank to less than 9,000 km in the 1930s, the route length of the railways operated by the Ministry of Railways was over 18,000 km in 1940. In 1945 there were only around 7,500 km of private railways and 19,620 km of state railways. After the attack on China in 1937 and the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War , the economy, including rail transport, was increasingly subordinated to military concerns. In order to ensure a faster connection to the mainland, a "new trunk line" ( Shinkansen ) between Tokyo and Shimonoseki was planned in 1939 , which, unlike the prevailing narrow-gauge ( Cape gauge ) network, was to operate on standard gauge . However, the plan was soon abandoned and it was not implemented as a high-speed line until the 1960s. Soon after the start of the war, but especially after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, fuel and maintenance materials became scarce. In order to make the war- essential supply of coal from Kyūshū independent of ferries, the Kammon railway tunnel was completed in 1942/44 . The construction of locomotives and wagons was also increasingly geared towards freight transport for the war economy.

The shortage of personnel due to military service led in 1942 to a fundamental reorganization of the ministry and the regional offices. (The “branch offices” ( 支 社 , shisha ) that still exist today after the privatization were created.) The number of local branches was reduced from 110 to 70.

In order to merge the supervision of all traffic and communication routes in view of the deteriorating course of the war for Japan, the Ministry of Railways became the Ministry of Transport and Communication on November 1, 1943 with the Ministry of Communications, which oversaw civil shipping, aviation and the telegraph lines merged. After the end of the war, responsibility for the state railways initially fell to the Ministry of Transport , before the independent Japanese state railway was created in 1949 .

Minister ( 鉄 道 大臣 , tetsudō daijin )

# Surname Kanji Taking office
1 Motoda Hajime 元 田 肇 May 15, 1920
2 Ōki Enkichi 大 木 遠 吉 June 12, 1922
3 Yamanouchi Kazuji 山 之 内 一次 Sep 2 1923
4th Komatsu Kenjirō 小松 謙 次郎 Jan. 7, 1924
5 Sengoku Mitsugi 仙 石 貢 June 11, 1924
6th Inoue Tadashirō 井上 匡 四郎 June 3, 1926
7th Ogawa Heikichi 小川 平 吉 Apr 20, 1927
8th Egi Tasuku 江木 翼 July 2, 1929
9 Hara Shūjirō 原 脩 次郎 Sep 10 1931
10 Tokonami Takejirō 床 次 竹 二郎 Dec 13, 1931
11 Mitsuchi Chūzō 三 土 忠 造 May 26, 1932
12 Uchida Nobuya 内 田 信 也 July 8, 1934
13 Maeda Yonezō 前 田 米 蔵 March 9, 1936
14th Godō Takuo 伍 堂 卓 雄 Feb. 2, 1937
15th Nakajima Chikuhei 中 島 知 久 平 June 4, 1937
16 Maeda Yonezō 前 田 米 蔵 Jan. 5, 1939
17th Nagai Ryūtaro 永 井 柳太郎 Aug 30, 1939
18th Nagata Hidejirō 永田 秀 次郎 Nov 29, 1939
19th Matsuno Tsuruhei 松 野 鶴 平 Jan. 16, 1940
20th Murata Shozo 村田 省 蔵 July 22, 1940
21st Ogawa Gotaro 小川 郷 太郎 28 Sep 1940
22nd Murata Shozo 村田 省 蔵 July 18, 1941
23 Terajima Ken 寺 島 健 Oct 18, 1941
24 Hatta Yoshiaki 八 田 嘉明 Dec 2, 1941

Web links

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Motoda is the family name, Hajime the first name.