JAPAN’S TRAIN FERRIES

In any country made up of islands, the rail network relies on ferries, and nowhere is this more the case than in Japan, where the Government Railways operated 60 train ferries from 1919 until they were replaced by tunnels and bridges. There were three ferry crossings from the main island of Honshu: the Seikan to Hokkaido in the north, the Uko to Shikoku in the south, and the short crossing to Kyushu in the west was the Kanshin.

In the early 20th century goods wagons were shipped by barge on these routes but the weather could play a part in disrupting the crossings. The first train ferries were built locally in 1919 for the two-mile Kanshin crossing at Shimonoseki. and were double-ended paddle ferries with a single rail track on their main deck. Within a year they were carrying more than 400 wagons a day across the strait. In the next three years, and were added and the last ferry, was delivered in 1926. However, the ferries became victims of their own success when