Photo/Illutration A train runs on the JR Yamada Line that connects Morioka and Miyako stations in Iwate Prefecture on July 27. (The Asahi Shimbun)

One of the gifts from U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858)--who visited Japan in the so-called Black Ships in 1853--aroused particular curiosity among the Japanese: a miniature steam locomotive.

“Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan,” a book by Perry, vividly describes how Shogunate officials forced themselves on the roof of the model and rejoiced as they chugged around a miniature track.

I saw a panel explaining Perry’s “Narrative of the Expedition” yesterday at the site of the Old Shinbashi Station in Tokyo in a corner of a special exhibition to commemorate 150 years of Japan’s rail system.

An opening ceremony was held there in 1872, with Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) and Japanese and foreign dignitaries in attendance. A painting of the ceremony’s scenes conveyed a determination of our forebears of the time to carve out a new path for this nation.

Railroad tracks continued to grow under calls for increasing Japan’s national wealth and military strength.

Politicians courted railways to their home communities, a practice that earned the judgmental moniker of “gaden intetsu” (drawing railways to one’s own rice paddies). It is a play on the phrase “gaden insui” (drawing extra water into one’s own rice paddies), which means being self-serving. 

Railways remained a symbol of development well into the postwar period. Kakuei Tanaka (1918-1993), who served as prime minister, went so far as to assert that railways are allowed to post deficits if there is no other option for the economic development of the rural areas.

Cries of pain, however, are rising in recent years from rural routes across this country. A map of routes East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) recently released shocked me with its plethora of sections color-coded in yellow and red to show that few passengers are using them.

Some of the stretches I once traveled along myself--including the Hanamaki-Tono and Kobuchizawa-Koumi sections--are part of the pattern mottled in yellow and red.

“I got off at the last station on the line/ And in the light of the snow/ Walked into a lonely town,” so goes a tanka composed by poet Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912) as he alighted at Kushiro Station, in the east of Hokkaido, toward the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912).

Development of the rail network broadened the spheres of our mobility to the north and to the south. Times have since changed, but night trains and terminal stations continue to arouse the same emotions in our minds.

Some of the things that railways have carried for the past 150 years are so dear to our hearts that they cannot be measured with economic value alone.

My thoughts go both to things that do, and should, change with the times and to others that should remain invariable despite the shifting times.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 29

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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