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I think that though we are a railway company, we consider ourselves a city-shaping company. In Europe for instance, railway companies simply connect cities through their terminals. That is a pretty normal way of operating in this industry, whereas what we do is completely different: we create cities and then, as a utility facility, we add the stations and the railways to connect them one with another.
This model was pioneered in the 1950s by what became Hankyu Railways. Hankyu’s network connects central Osaka to its northern suburbs, as well as Kyoto and Kobe. Its innovative founder Kobayashi Ichizo first built suburban housing, then a department store at the terminal station; he then created a hot spring resort, a zoo, and his own distinctive brand of all-women musical theater, the Takarazuka Revue. He also began to run bus services to and from his stations. Other companies emulated Hankyu’s example: Tokyo Disneyland is a collaboration between Disney and the Keisei Railway, while Hanshin in Osaka owns the Hanshin Tigers baseball team.
Found it really interesting how railway companies diversify their investments and reduce risk. Smart.
Honestly the biggest reason might be the population density and structure in Japan. People live and travel between large metropolises, and those are relatively close, so this makes train travel more cost-effective.
Otherwise, this “only” makes the shinkansen great. Because regional and local trains are pretty much the same as any developed country ( albeit very very punctual ). Great train networks aren’t limited to Japan. European trains fare the same except some lack of punctuality, and the lack of central backbone, due to the amount of international borders. Chinese high speed rail is actually better quality-wise and more connected than in Japan, but local trains are meh and extremely crowded. Honestly it feels like the US is the outlier here, because they had decent rail and managed to fuck it up in favour of road traffic.
The author mentioned that keeping those railways around, instead of just getting rid of them for cars like the US did, allowed the cities in Japan to become that dense in the first place. It’s not because Tokyo and Osaka were always this populated. Even then,
The urban area of Tokyo, the densest Japanese city, has a weighted population density less than that of many European cities, including Paris, Madrid, or Athens.
Of course there are plenty of people who live in Tokyo proper, like I do, but most people I know actually live on its periphery, where the density isn’t as crazy.
regional and local trains are pretty much the same as any developed country
Are unmanned platforms uncommon outside Japan? I genuinely don’t know, but its the only place I’ve noticed them.
According to this article, John Major came so close to giving the UK a world-class railway system. A bit more deregulation and some light-handed tweaking of incentive structures would have done it.
While the author correctly identifies ways the west subsidizes cars, the neoliberal prescriptions are horseshit.
Yeah, lots of correct observations, but also lots of wrong conclusions. I’d even argue the very first point about culture is very relevant, because japanese culture inherently puts a small bit of breaks on the aspects of capitalism that spiral out of control (they have tons of hypercapitalist issues too, though).
I think it’s correct that having private companies compete has certain advantages in railway infrastructure, if the right framework is given. Imagine someone from here was to start a railway company - they would know about induced demand, about the importance of having frequent service even at times of lower demand to enable rail as primary transport. They wouldn’t have to convince rightoids that spending public money on that is worth it, they could just do it and see the results. In general the good thing about markets is that they enable less planning overhead as everyone focuses on their own thing. Loosely some sort of swarm intelligence.
But none of that will ever work when cars are effectively subsidized and even private rail companies would still be beholden to massive political hurdles for building new lines. Though especially the latter is a real question about tradeoffs of benefit for society vs. individual preference with no single correct answer.
Japan got their first trains second hand from the UK, this understandably traumatized them so much that they went on to make the best trains in the world.
