Who Tore Up the Tracks? · Episode 12 of 24 · 22 min
The Roads Not Taken: Europe and Japan
Europe and Japan faced the same automakers, oil companies, and postwar boom as America and chose differently. They nationalized bombed networks, electrified them, taxed petrol heavily, and ran trains as a public service, producing the Tokaido Shinkansen in 1964 and the TGV in 1981. They did not reject the car, though; they kept both systems.
Who's who
- Shinji SogōJapanese National Railways president who championed the Shinkansen
- Hideo ShimaJNR chief engineer behind the Shinkansen
- Louis ArmandSNCF leader who drove French electrification
- Richard BeechingBritish Railways chairman whose 1963 report proposed large closures
- François MitterrandPresident who inaugurated the TGV's Paris-Lyon line in 1981
Where it happens
- Tokaido Corridor, JapanTokyo-Osaka line of the first Shinkansen
- Paris-Lyon Line, FranceLGV Sud-Est, where the TGV gutted the air route
- BritainBeeching closed roughly a third of its network
Timeline
- January 1938SNCF begins operation after France nationalizes its railways
- June 1949Japanese National Railways established
- March 1963Beeching Report published
- October 1, 1964Tokaido Shinkansen opens nine days before the Tokyo Olympics
- September 1981TGV enters service between Paris and Lyon
- April 1987JNR privatized after accumulating more than 27 trillion yen in debt
Still debated
Europe did not reject the car; it built roads without liquidating rail. Scholars split on whether density and geography explain the outcome or policy shaped the geography. Public ownership is credited with saving the trains but also with JNR's ruinous debt.