The  abbreviated JNR or , was the business entity that operated Japan's national railway network from 1949 to 1987.

Network

Railways 
As of June 1, 1949, the date of establishment of JNR, it operated  of narrow gauge () railways in all 46 prefectures of Japan. This figure expanded to  in 1981 (excluding Shinkansen), but later reduced to  as of March 31, 1987, the last day of JNR.

JNR operated both passenger and freight services.

Shinkansen 

Shinkansen, the world's first high-speed railway was debuted by JNR in 1964. By the end of JNR in 1987, four lines were constructed:
 Tōkaidō Shinkansen , completed in 1964
 Sanyō Shinkansen , completed in 1975
 Tōhoku Shinkansen , as of 1987
 Jōetsu Shinkansen , completed in 1982

Buses

JNR operated bus lines as feeders, supplements or substitutions of railways. Unlike railway operation, JNR Bus was not superior to other local bus operators. The JR Bus companies are the successors of the bus operation of JNR.

Ships
JNR operated ferries to connect railway networks separated by sea or to meet other local demands:
Kanmon Ferry (discontinued in 1964) Shimonoseki Station (Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi) – Mojikō Station (Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka)
Miyajima Ferry Miyajimaguchi Station (Ōno, Hiroshima) – Miyajima Station (Miyajima, Hiroshima)
Nihori Ferry (discontinued in 1982) Nigata Station (Kure, Hiroshima) – Horie Station (Matsuyama, Ehime)

Ōshima Ferry (discontinued in 1976) Ōbatake Station (Yanai, Yamaguchi) – Komatsukō Station (Suō-Ōshima, Yamaguchi)
Seikan Ferry Aomori Station (Aomori, Aomori) – Hakodate Station (Hakodate, Hokkaidō)
Ukō Ferry Uno Station (Tamano, Okayama) – Takamatsu Station (Takamatsu, Kagawa)

Out of three routes assigned to JR companies in 1987, only the Miyajima Ferry remains active as of 2023.

Unions
A number of unions represented workers at JNR, including the National Railway Workers' Union (Kokuro), the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union (Doro), and Doro-Chiba, a break-away group from Doro.

History

The term Kokuyū Tetsudō "state-owned railway" originally referred to a network of railway lines operated by 17 private companies that were  nationalized following the Railway Nationalization Act of 1906 and placed under the control of the Railway Institute.  Later, the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications took over control of the network. The ministries used the name Japanese Government Railways (JGR) to refer their network in English. During World War II, many JGR lines were dismantled to supply steel for the war effort.

On June 1, 1949, by a directive of the U.S. General HQ in Tokyo, JGR was reorganized into Japanese National Railways, a state-owned public corporation. JNR enjoyed many successes, including the inauguration of high-speed Shinkansen service along the Tōkaidō Shinkansen line on October 1, 1964. However, JNR was not a state-run corporation; its accounting was independent from the national budget. Rural sections without enough passengers began to press its management, pulling it further and further into debt. In 1983, JNR started to close its unprofitable 83 local lines (the closure continued three years after the privatization).

By 1987, JNR's debt was over ¥27 trillion ($442 billion at 2021 exchange rates) and the company was spending ¥147 ($2.40 in 2021 dollars) for every ¥100 ($1.63 in 2021 dollars) earned.  By an act of the Diet of Japan, on April 1, 1987, JNR was privatized and divided into seven  railway companies, six passenger and one freight, collectively called the Japan Railways Group or JR Group. Long-term liabilities of JNR were taken over by the Japanese National Railway Settlement Corporation. That corporation was subsequently disbanded on October 22, 1998, and its remaining debts were transferred to the national budget's general accounting.  By this time the debt has risen to ¥30 trillion ($491 billion in 2021 dollars).

JNR dismissal lawsuit

Many lawsuits and labor commission cases were filed over the decades from the privatization in 1987.   Kokuro and the National Railway Locomotive Engineers' Union (Zendoro), both prominent Japanese railway unions, represented a number of the JNR workers.

Lists of workers to be employed by the new organizations were drawn up by JNR and given to the JR companies. There was substantial pressure on union members to leave their unions, and within a year, the membership of the National Railway Workers' Union (Kokuro) fell from 200,000 to 44,000. Workers who had supported the privatization, or those who left Kokuro, were hired at substantially higher rates than Kokuro members.

There was a government pledge that no one would be "thrown out onto the street", and so unhired workers were classified as "needing to be employed" and were transferred to the JNR Settlement Corporation, where they could be assigned for up to three years.  Around 7,600 workers were transferred in this way, and around 2,000 of them were hired by JR firms, and 3,000 found work elsewhere. Mitomu Yamaguchi, a former JNR employee from Tosu in Saga prefecture who had been transferred to the JNR Settlement Corporation, later stated that their help in finding work consisted of giving him photocopies of recruitment ads from newspapers.  This period ended in April 1990, and 1,047 were dismissed. This included 64 Zendoro members and 966 Kokuro members.

Twenty-three years after the original privatization, on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court settled the dispute between the workers and the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, the successor body to the JNR Settlement Corporation. The agency said it would pay 20 billion yen, approximately 22 million yen per worker, to 904 plaintiffs. However, as the workers were not reinstated, it was not a full settlement.

Baseball team
Between 1950 and 1965, JNR indirectly owned a professional baseball team named . Swallow was a symbol of JNR as it is the English equivalent of the Japanese Tsubame, the name of a deluxe train operated by JNR in the 1950s. JNR sold the team to the Sankei Shinbun in 1965, and called the Atoms from 1966 to 1973; the team is now the Tokyo Yakult Swallows and has been owned by the Yakult company since 1970.

Accidents and criminal incidents

Accidents
JNR as a public corporation (from 1949 to 1987) experienced five major accidents (including two shipwrecks of railway ferries) with casualties more than 100: 
 Sakuragichō train fire A train fire at Sakuragichō Station in Yokohama on April 24, 1951, killed 106.
 Tōya Maru disaster A Seikan ferryboat sank off Hakodate killing 1,155 in a typhoon storm on September 26, 1954.
 Shiun Maru disaster An Ukō ferryboat collided with a fellow boat in a dense fog and sank killing 168 on May 11, 1955.
 Mikawashima train crash A three-train collision near Mikawashima Station in Tokyo on May 3, 1962, killed 160.
 Tsurumi rail accident A three-train collision near Tsurumi Station in Yokohama on November 9, 1963, killed 161.

Criminal incidents
In its very early days as a public corporation, JNR experienced a series of mysterious incidents as follows. Although the police at that time treated them as terrorism by the communists, doubts have been raised as to the validity of this conclusion.

 Shimoyama incident  The dismembered body of JNR President Sadanori Shimoyama was found on a railway track on July 5, 1949. The possibility of non-criminal suicide has not been ruled out.
 Mitaka incident  A train running without crew crashed into passengers and killed six people on July 15, 1949.
 Matsukawa derailment  A train was derailed because of destroyed track and three crew were killed on August 17, 1949.

In later years, JNR was a target of radical leftists. On October 21, 1968, groups of extremist students celebrating "International Antiwar Day" occupied and vandalized Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. They criticized JNR's collaboration in the Vietnam War by operating freight trains carrying jet fuel for U.S. military use. On November 29, 1985, militants supporting a radical sect of JNR's labor union objecting to the privatization of JNR damaged signal cables at 33 points around Tokyo and Osaka to halt thousands of commuter trains and then set fire to Asakusabashi Station in Tokyo.

As such, relationships with labor unions were always a difficult problem for JNR. Since public workers were prohibited to strike, they carried out "work-to-rule protests" that caused trains to be delayed. On March 13, 1973, train delays caused by such protests resulted in a riot of angered passengers at Ageo Station in Saitama Prefecture. From November 26, 1975, to December 3, 1975, major labor unions of JNR conducted an eight-day-long illegal "strike for the right to strike", which resulted in a total defeat of the unions.

See also
 Japan Railways locomotive numbering and classification
 SoftBank Telecom – former Japan Telecom, an affiliated company of JNR established in 1984

Notes

References

External links

 Japan Railways Technical Research Institute: Brief history of Japanese railways

 
Defunct railway companies of Japan
Government-owned railway companies
Railway companies established in 1949
Railway companies disestablished in 1987
Privatized companies of Japan
일본국유철도(, Japanese National Railways)는 일본의 국유 철도를 운영하던 일본 국토교통성 산하의 공기업이었다. 약칭은 국철()이며, 영문 약칭은 JNR로 1987년 4월 1일에 민영화한, 현재 JR 그룹 각 회사의 전신이기도 하다.

개요 

일본국유철도는 국영 사업으로 일본 운수성 철도 총국이 관리해 온 일본의 국영 철도 산업을 물려받아, 독립채산재 구조로 경영하기 위하여 1949년 6월 1일 발족한 일본의 공기업이다. 민영화되기 하루 전인 1987년 3월 31일 시점에서, 신칸센과 재래선을 합쳐 총 연장 19,639 km의 철도 노선을 소유하고 있었으며, 30개국의 철도 관리국과 총국을 운영했다. 이 밖에 철도와 관련된 선박 사업 (항로 총 연장 132 km), 버스 산업 (노선 총 연장 11,739 km) 등을 경영해 왔다.

최고 책임자인 총재는 내각이 임명하였으며, 임기는 4년이었다. 그리고 총재에 버금가는 부총재는 운수대신의 인가를 받아 총재가 임명하였으며, 부총재의 임기도 4년이었다. 또한 기술 부문에서 총재를 보좌하는 기술 책임자 ()를 두었다. 이 밖의 임원으로 임기 3년의 이사 (최소 11명에서 17명까지)를 두었으며, 이 중 일본국유철도 재직자 출신의 이사는 "상무이사"로 불렸다. 일본국유철도의 중요한 결정은 일반 기업의 임원회에 상당하는 "이사회"에서 내렸다.

본사는 도쿄도 지요다구 마루노우치잇초메의 국철 본사 빌딩 (지금의 마루노우치 오아조)에 있었다. 본관은 구 철도성 청사로, 민영화 이후에는 운수성이 잠시 동안 사용했다. 국철 본사 빌딩은 1997년까지 동일본 여객철도가 사용하기도 했다.

공기업 일본국유철도 

태평양 전쟁 이후인 1947년 1월부터 4월까지는 급행열차와 2등열차가 모두 폐지되는 최악의 사태를 맞은 일본 철도였지만, 같은 해 6월부터는 점차 복구가 시작되었다. 그러나 국유철도의 재정은 인플레이션까지 더해진데다 해외귀환자들의 고용 등으로 인하여 극도로 악화되었고, 1948년 7월 22일에는 연합군 최고사령부로부터 국가의 전매 사업이나 국유철도 등의 사업에서 국가 공무원을 배제하고, 사업 운영을 위한 공기업의 설치를 요구하였다. 곧 11월 30일에는 〈일본국유철도법〉이 국회를 통과했고, 1949년 6월 1일에는 공공기업체 일본국유철도가 발족하게 되었다.

국철은 1960년대까지 일본 내의 여객과 화물 수송의 주축을 담당했지만, 1970년대 이후 정치가에 의해 해당 지역구의 과소 지역에 신선 건설을 요구당했고, 도로나 항공 운송의 증가, 일본 내 광업의 쇠퇴 등이 겹쳐 불채산노선이 증가하였다. 게다가 노사관계 악화로 인한 파업 등 노동 쟁의가 빈번해졌고, 1973년의 오일 쇼크와 이후의 불황 등으로 막대한 누적 적자를 안게되었다. 국철은 처음으로 적자를 기록한 1964년 이후 한번도 흑자를 기록하지 못하는 지경이었다. 그 틈을 타, 프랑스 테제베는 신칸센보다 50 km/h 더 빠른 270 km/h로 달리게 되었고 적자에 시달리던 국철은 결국 속도 경쟁력을 잃게 되었다.

경영 개선을 위해 1987년 4월 1일에는 철도사업을 주식회사(JR 그룹)로 이관토록 하였고, 국철의 재무 처리는 일본국유철도 청산사업단이 담당하게 되었다.

국철의 장기 채무의 6할 정도는 일본국유철도 청산사업단이 계승하여 필요하지 않게 된 용지나 JR 주식의 매각 등을 통해 상환하도록 계획하였다. 그러나 거액의 채무에 대한 금리는 부담이 되었고, 버블 경제의 붕괴로 인한 불황으로 인해 토지 매각이 실패하는 경우가 많아 채무 축소는커녕, 채무가 오히려 증가하게 되었다. 상환 불능이 된 채무의 거의 대부분은 국가의 재정이 담당하게 되었고, 사업단은 1998년에 해산했다. 사업단 업무의 일부는 일본철도건설공단(현재의 철도 건설·운수 시설 정비 지원 기구) 내의 국철 청산 사업본부가 담당하고 있다.

민영화 이후 20여 년이 흘렀지만, 2007년 현재도 일정 연령 이상의 사람들은 JR을 국철이라고 하는 경우가 있다. 또한 JR 서일본·JR 시코쿠의 차량에는 아직도 ‘일본국유철도’의 명판이 남아있다. JR 홋카이도나 JR 시코쿠의 차량 일부의 선풍기에는 상당수가 중앙에 ‘JNR’의 로고가 남아있을 정도다. 게다가 JR이 현재는 국철이 아님에도 불구하고, JR과 사철을 구분하는 사람이 많다.

관련 사업·시설

자동차 사업(국철 버스) 

주로 국철 계획선의 선행·연락·보완을 내걸고 출범하여, 버스 사업 및 화물 자동차 사업을 행하고 있었다. 국철 버스의 사업은 민영화 당시에는 각 회사 직영의 버스 사업으로 다시 출범하였으나, 지금은 모두 자회사로 되어있다.

선박 사업 
바다를 사이에 둔 노선을 연결하기 위해, 철도연락선을 운항하고 있었다. 분할 민영화 이전의 니호리(仁堀)·오시마(大島)의 2개 항로는 폐지되었지만, 존치된 세이칸·우코·미야지마의 3개 항로는 각각 JR 홋카이도·JR 시코쿠·JR 서일본으로 이관되었다. 그러나 세이칸 연락선은 쓰가루 해협선(세이칸 터널)의 개업으로, 우코 연락선은 혼시비산 선(세토 대교)의 개업으로 폐지되었다.

철도 병원 
다이쇼 시대부터 국철 직원을 대상으로 하는 철도 병원이 순차적으로 개설되었다. 일본국유철도가 발족한 뒤에는 국철이 관할하는 병원이 되었고, 1982년부터 1987년까지는 보험의료기관으로 지정되어 국철 직원 외에 일반 환자도 대상으로 하게 되었다. 민영화 이후에는 폐지되거나 JR 각 사로 이관되기도 하였다.

역대 총재

같이 보기 
 국철 청산사업단
 JR
 국철 버스(JR 버스)

외부 링크 

  일본국유철도법 (法庫.com)
  일본국유철도경영재건촉진특별조치법 (法庫.com)
  일본국유철도개혁법 (法庫.com)
  일본국유철도청산사업단법 (法庫.com)

 
1949년 설립된 기업
1987년 해체된 기업
국영 철도 기업