Links to Japanese railway companies.

No model without a prototype. Below a selection of JR Group and private railways are listed. The list is NOT complete!

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JREast, operating from Tokyo to the North of Honshu, also operating Tokyo commuter services!

JRWest, operating from Osaka to the West Coast and cities in the south of Honshu.

JR Tokai, operating in central Japan. Meitetsu (below) is one of their competitors. Japanese language only..

JR Kyushu operates on the the southern island of Kyushu (Japanese)

JR Hokkaido is operating on the Northern Island of Hokkaido

JR Shikoku is the smallest of the JR companies, but JR Shikoku offers interesting services. Japanese language only.

New is this JR Freight homepage. It is only in Japanese.

JREast Cultural Society is a branch of JREast, organising cultural events and publishing the English-language Japan Rail and Transport Review magazine..

Nagoya Railways (Meitetsu), regional railway company operating from Nagoya (Japanese)

Railway Technology Research Institute (Japan) a research instutute for railway technology.

Hankyu Railway Co. operating from Osaka.(Japanese only)

Kinki Nippon Tetsudo or Kintetsu is Japan's largest private railway. Operating in the Osaka-Kyoto-Nagoya area.

The Tobu Railway runs from Tokyo (Asakusa) to Nikko, there are more routes in their network.

Tokyu operates a dense service on their Tokyo urban network.

 Japanese railway rolling stock manufacturers and other railway-related manufacturers

Hitachi is one of Japan's largest suppliers of railway technolgy. Their product range also includes signalling, traffic management and passenger-service equipment. Pages are in English.

Nippon Sharyo is a Nagoya area based company and supplies rolling stock to almost all of the JR-group companies as well as quite a few railways overseas, including the USA.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries is well-known for its Shinkansen technology. A great number of other interesting trains come from Kawasaski's workshops.

Tokyu Sharyo is part of the Tokyu Group, which operates railways, department stores, hotels, an airline etc. Tokyu Car also makes road vehicles, like trailers and bodywork for trucks.

  Niigata Transys, a smaller manufacturer, but they have built interesting trains.

Kyosan Electric makes signalling and information systems for railways, airports and road traffic.

Daido Signal is another signalling manufaturer 

To read Japanese language pages on a non-Japanese computer you can use this translating page. Fill in the URL in the panel, tick the right-hand 'radio-button' (translate from Japanese into English), click on the square button. A new window will open with the translated page. You can then browse as usual. The translation is not perfect, but usable. As translating takes time, your connection will be slower than usual. Alta Vista also offer a translating service, 'Babelfish', which is easier to use.

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