Private railways in Japan are ran differently from ones in the United States.
In Japan, private sector railway ( or , Shitetsu or Mintetsu), commonly simply private railway, refers to a public transit railway owned and operated by private sector, almost always organized as a joint-stock company, or in Japanese: kabushiki gaisha (lit. A private railroad is a railroad run by a private business entity (usually a corporation but not need be), as opposed to a railroad run by a public sector. In the United States, a private railroad is a railroad owned by a company and serves only that company, and does not hold itself out as a "common carrier" (i.e., it does not provide rail transport services for the general public). 
