Toyokawa Tetsudo
| Toyokawa Tetsudo
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Kabushiki-gaisha (joint stock company) |
| founding | 1896 |
| resolution | 1944 |
| Reason for dissolution | takeover |
| Seat | Toyokawa , Aichi |
| Branch | Railway company |
The Toyokawa Tetsudō ( Japanese 豊 川 鉄 道 ) was a private railway company in Japan . After it was founded in 1896, it built and operated the southernmost section of what would later become the Iida Line in Aichi Prefecture . This was 27.9 km long and led from Toyohashi to Ōmi . After the railway company had been taken over by Nagoya Tetsudō in 1938, the railway facilities were nationalized in 1943 and the company was finally dissolved in 1944.
history
In 1893 a group of local business people planned to build a 6.5 km long railway line with a gauge of 762 mm. It should begin at Toyohashi Station and take pilgrims to Toyokawa Inari , an important temple of the Buddhist Sōtō-shū school in Toyokawa . This project grew however competition from another consortium, which planned an 8 km long route from Toyokawa to Shinshiro ; due to the wider cape gauge , they would not have been compatible with each other. After lengthy negotiations, the two consortia joined forces and now planned a Cape-gauge route from Toyohashi via Toyokawa to Ōmi with a total length of 27.9 km. A week after the license application was approved, the Toyokawa Tetsudō railway company was founded on February 1, 1896.
The opening of the first section from Toyohashi to Toyokawa took place on July 15, 1897. Seven days later, the section to Mikawa-Ichinomiya was added. The line reached Shinshiro on April 25, 1898 and finally the terminus Ōmi on September 23, 1900. The construction costs were more than double the share capital of 500,000 yen. As a result, the company went into massive debt and had liabilities of one million yen. In May 1901 it wanted to issue bonds in the amount of 300,000 yen; despite an interest rate of 12%, no investors were interested. A month later, the entire supervisory board resigned and was replaced by representatives of the debtor banks. These succeeded in gradually bringing the finances into balance. By 1918 the dividend rose to a peak of 20%.
In the 1920s, the company pursued an expansion strategy. A subsidiary called Hōraiji Tetsudō extended the route on February 1, 1923 from Ōmi via Hon-Nagashino to Mikawa-Kawai . The Toyokawa Tetsudō took over the management of this section and electrified the entire route on July 28, 1925. It promoted tourism by setting up viewing platforms in particularly scenic locations and opening a hotel with onsen at the Yuya-Onsen train station . The section between Toyohashi and the Kozakai junction was expanded to two tracks, so that from April 1, 1926, trains from Aichi Denki Tetsudō (predecessor of today's Nagoya Tetsudō ) could run from Toyohashi to Nagoya . The next day the second track extended to Toyokawa. In addition, the Toyokawa Tetsudō was involved in the Taguchi Tetsudō and the Sanshin Tetsudō from 1927 .
As a result of the global economic crisis , revenue and the number of passengers fell significantly from 1930 onwards. The losses were partially offset by an amusement park that opened at Nagayama Station in 1931. Clashes with the unions resulted in long-lasting strikes, which again put the Toyokawa Tetsudō in financial distress. There were also repeated conflicts between the shareholders and the management, which were expressed in frequent changes. The main shareholder Tokio Marine finally had enough and sold its shares on December 5, 1938 to the Meitetsu Group , the holding company of Nagoya Tetsudo . As a result, the Toyokawa Tetsudō lost its independence.
Although the later so called Iida line was completed in 1937 between Toyohashi and Tatsuno , it was divided into four sections, each operated by a railway company. It was about the Toyokawa Tetsudō, the Hōraiji Tetsudō, the Sanshin Tetsudō and the Ina Denki Tetsudō . During the Pacific War , the government wanted to bring under its control several strategically important private railways that had been established after the first wave of nationalization in 1906/07 . In the meantime, a 2.4 km long branch line went into operation on May 12, 1942, which opened up an important arsenal of the Imperial Japanese Navy from Toyokawa station (today there is a plant of the rail vehicle manufacturer Nippon Sharyo ). After the Reichstag had passed the nationalization law as requested, the Railway Ministry took over the railway facilities of all four companies on August 1, 1943 and merged them to form the Iida line. The remaining corporate divisions of Toyokawa Tetsudō were integrated into the Meitetsu Group on March 1, 1944.
literature
- Nagoya Tetsudō (Ed.): 名古屋 鉄 道 百年 史 . Nagoya 1994, p. 916–971 (100 years of Nagoya Tetsudō history).
Individual evidence
- ↑ 地方 鉄 道 及 軌道 一 覧. 昭和 18 年 4 月 1 日 現在. National Parliamentary Library , April 1, 1943, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 運輸 開業 免 許 状 下 付. In: Official Gazette. National Library of Parliament, July 24, 1897, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 運輸 開業 免 許 状 下 付. In: Official Gazette. National Library of Parliament, July 26, 1897, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 運輸 開業 免 許 状 下 付. In: Official Gazette. National Library of Parliament, April 27, 1898, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 運輸 開業 免 許 状 下 付. In: Official Gazette. National Library of Parliament, September 27, 1900, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 地方 鉄 道 運輸 開始. In: Official Gazette. National Parliamentary Library, February 3, 1923, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 地方 鉄 道 運輸 開始. In: Official Gazette. National Parliamentary Library, May 20, 1942, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 鉄 道 省 告示 第 204 号. In: Official Gazette. National Parliamentary Library, July 26, 1943, accessed April 28, 2019 (Japanese).