Railroad history in Japan.

History is sometimes jump, though not infrequently he moves creep. The author tried to capture the development and leap events in the history of railways in Japan that make up the history of the glory of his ministry. In present-day train service (KA) has two main characteristics, namely timeliness and good rail capacity. Reading books on the history of Japanese railway will bring us to an understanding of the existence of a long process of the presence of this a reliable mode of transportation. Chronology of historical events becomes important to learn in terms of making the railway as one of the main support of transportation in Indonesia. Therefore, the circuit in this paper will review some part in the history of trains in Japan are hopefully able to be used as a means of learning.

The presence of KA in Japan can not be separated from the Meiji Restoration in progress. Exposure to the modernization which is the main symbol of the Meiji Restoration utilized by the minister Kingdom of England to market the central railway technology they develop. At that time, railway technology can be likened to LTE technology today, where every pair of eyes in the whole world a great desire to see and develop this technology. Railway technology is believed to revolutionize the pattern of human movement and transportation of goods in the world, because the train is believed to be able to eliminate the speed and capacity constraints faced by other modes of transportation at that time. At the time this technology was introduced by the British government, the Japanese government actually is experiencing crop failures in the Tohoku region. Crop failure this be one for the rapid adoption of railway technology in Japan, because the Japanese government believes that the adoption of this technology is able to cope with a similar crisis by bringing food faster than Japan over the country to the area of crisis (such as Tohoku).

Although approved by the government, the adoption of this technology is apparently not immune from the opposition. The biggest opposition comes from the military who put priority on weaponry and isolationism. Isolationism is a notion that is fairly common in Japanese society, where they assume railway built by foreign engineers is a strange alien tool. After having some problems in terms of contracts and administration, the Meiji government finally agreed on plans to build railway line. The first railway line was built in 1872, which connects the state capital of Tokyo and Yokohama port. Yokohama is one of the few ports that are built to increase international trade. After conducting a survey in 1870, eventually train line along 29 km successfully operating in 1872. The success story of this development was followed by the construction of the railway line from Osaka to the port of Kobe. Not long ago, the development process is then forwarded by linking Osaka - Kyoto (1876) and Osaka - Otsu (1880).

Several series of events is at least provide some important lessons for the development of the railway line. The first lesson is the development priorities that put the construction of the trade support in the first position. Japanese government policies that build towards the port town center lane (ie Tokyo-Yokohama and Osaka-Kobe) to support the trade, as well as the mindset of the railway line design for food security in parts of the country is one of the important messages about this development priorities. This message becomes very interesting, because today is generally understood that the primary function is as a passenger train and parse congestion, with little attention to the transport of goods. This understanding is not entirely wrong, but when they put the mindset in terms of competitiveness of domestic products and the effectiveness of the distribution of goods, the development of railway lines must accommodate effectiveness in the distribution of goods. Because the price of any goods to consumers contained costs to distribute, the development of the railway line to lower the cost of distribution of goods becomes an important message that should be underlined. In the future this mindset is also used as a primary consideration in conducting wide standardization rail, where the increase in the capacity of rail cars to offset the progress of the chemical industry can not be done without wide standardization rail.

The second important lesson is the need for lengthy process of building a railway. Convenience of transportation life enjoyed by the people of Japan at this time apparently was the result of a long process that began before 1872. This process went through a phase heaving, privatization-nationalization phase, up to the phase of competition with private vehicles. Therefore, comparing the conditions of transport Indonesia with Japanese transportation is not a wise comparisons, especially with the analysis that expensive vehicle tax, and parking spaces are expensive as the main reason for the tendency of the Japanese people to use public transport. Before starting the vehicle use policy tightening, Japan already has a long history of the development of mass transportation as the backbone of the nation's transportation system. They were also lucky when competition between private vehicles and mass transit was at its peak, world war forced the restriction of the use of fuel for military purposes only. Thus, mass transportation has been prepared in advance remains the top choice of Japanese society.

The third message is no less important is the relationship with the railway line of defense and security of the nation. At the beginning, the military are those who feel most aggrieved by the construction of this railway, although in the future the military is a very disadvantaged in the distribution logistics and soldiers in wartime. Even when the idea of railway electrification is done, the military considers returning this idea would endanger state resistance, since the attack on the electric train (KRL) easier deadly war logistics distribution channels rather than the use of steam trains.

This topic actually being a debate in Indonesia, so hopefully some important messages from the history of nationalization and privatization in Japan can be drawn lessons to be implemented in Indonesia.
Thank you for reading this article. Written and posted by Bambang Sunarno. sunarnobambang86@gmail.com
author:
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name: Bambang Sunarno.
http://www.primadonablog.blogspot.com/2014/11/railroad-history-in-japan.html
DatePublished: 26 November 2014 at 12:32

Tag : Railroad history in Japan.
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