Japan's first railway: Shinbashi–Yokohama line
Ferrocarril de Japón: línea Shinbashi–Yokohama
- Date
- 14 de octubre de 1872 · confidence high
- Place
- Shinbashi, Tokyo, Japan
- Credited to
- Meiji government and engineer Edmund Morel
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A 29 km line between Shinbashi (Tokyo) and Yokohama opened on 14 October 1872 with British engineers and locomotives. Its 1,067 mm gauge, narrower than standard, became Japan's gauge.
British oyatoi gaikokujin (hired foreigners) led the work; Japan soon replaced foreign engineers with Japanese ones.
What it led to
- Meiji industrialisation and the national 1,067 mm network
- domestic locomotive manufacture from 1893
- a gauge different from the Shinkansen's, which forced new lines to be built