The Development of Railway Technology in East Asia in Comparative Perspective

It was a bureau of manufacturing of the Japanese National Railway (JNR) that decisively controlled the development of locomotives and rolling stock in modern Japan. Largely depending on higher technical educational organizations outside Japan proper in the supply of engineers, railways in the Japanese empire were organized into the structure of ellipse with two centers of the JNR and South Manchuria Railway (SMR). The process of railway technology development in Japan before the First World War could be divided into four stages: (1) transfer of railway systems from the UK by the Japanese government in the 1870s and the 1880s; (2) acquisition of railway materials from the US and Germany and diversification of technology in the 1890s; (3) standardization and convergence of technology through the merger and nationalization of railway networks in the 1900s; and (4) the development of original technology by the government railway in the 1910s. SMR emphasized a technology transfer from Western world based on management stabilities and tried to manufacture its own railroad cars by itself, then participated in the world competition of the limited express passenger train in the 1930s. On the other hand, postwar Taiwan Railway Administration recovered from the damage of the war and developed from the old power to “dieselization” during the postwar to the US aid period, and locomotives were changed from the Japanese-made to American-made in the purchase process under the US aid. Lastly from the perspectives of comparative history, we compare the nationalization process of railways in Japan and Germany. As characteristics of expansion process of the “national” railways in Kingdom of Prussia, we could confirm two points: tradition of federated decentralization of authority and halfway centralization of power that was shown as absence of functional equivalent to Tetsudô In (Agency of Railways) in Japan.

Lushun Institute of Technology (LIT) and South Manchuria Technical College (SMTC) played a great role in supplying engineers for colonial government railways in Taiwan and Korea, South Manchuria Railway (SMR) , and rolling stock and locomotive companies in Dalian and Seoul. Dependent on educational organizations, such as LIT and SMTC with regard to the supply of engineers, railways within the Japanese empire were organized into an ellipse with JNR and SMR at its apex. The collaborative research activities demonstrated in the case of Conference on Rolling Stock between users and designated manufacturers able to produce high-quality products was one aspect of the “efficient” R&D adopted by a latecomer to industrialization—i.e., Imperial Japan. However, in this method of selecting qualified manufacturers, the state—the largest buyer—determined which manufacturers were candidates for optional contracts. For non-member firms excluded from collaborative research, this was the closed system of R&D activities.

This chapter offers a reconsideration of the process of Japan’s railway technology development during the Meiji period while focusing on the role of railway engineers and their technical imitation. It is true that underlying Japan’s advancement from imitation to original design were the formation of a cadre of Japanese engineers in both the government railway and private railway companies and the manufacturing know-how cultivated through the copying of a wide variety of model locomotives. In the context of the first wave of globalization occurring around the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, the ability to freely choose from among the most advanced railway materials offered by UK, US, and Germany contributed to the diversification of technology and concomitant accumulation of experience. It was the convergence of this technology and know-how that bore fruit in the development original technology.

As a result of the Russo-Japanese War, railroad construction was undertaken to set up the South Manchuria Railway (SMR) network in the northeastern part of China. However, the SMR had no option of buying railroad cars from abroad, because this was Japan’s first experience with foreign railroad management of a normal-gauge railway, and the machine industry in Japan had not grown sufficiently to support it. Even though railway technology was introduced from the Western world, the SMR began to pursue its own technology and was able to create a stable profit structure. The SMR’s accumulation of technology became world-class in the prewar period, and this level of development was also present in the organization’s internal management. In addition, the most advanced technology was developed, due to the organization’s superior management. Wartime technology was developed in response to the lack of resources experienced during the war, but it was not able to solve new technical problems, such as dieselization. The core technology was confined to Japanese employees and technology spillovers to Chinese employees were restricted.

It’s worthy of consideration that the relationship between Taiwan, the US, and Japan in this period is formed of cooperation, dependence, and the issues formed by Taiwan obtaining foreign capital and suffering invasion of its capital. If a country wants to develop itself but lacks sufficient funds and technology, it is necessary to cooperate with or depend on other countries. Since the TRA did not attach importance to technical research and development, and expected the “Mainland China Recovery” to take place, it naturally cooperated with the US and Japan (which were the anti-communist alliance) to complete its technological innovations. Taiwan’s development conditions were different from the United States’ as well as Japan’s. The partial dieselization policy adopted by the TRA had its own unique features and necessities, and met Taiwan’s phased demands adequately at the time. In this process, the US well exceeded Japan in influence over Taiwan. Also, the US aid operations were highly beneficial for the US firms involved. The cooperation structure of Taiwan, the US, and Japan can be observed clearly in the TRA’s development in the US-aid period. This structure’s influence can clearly be seen in the long-term development of the TRA.

This article compares the failure of nationalization in the German Empire in the 19th century with Japan’s earlier railway nationalization; that is, the placement of the main railway lines under national governmental management. Several comparative studies by Japanese economic historians have been made on railway nationalization in Germany and Japan. These studies have focused on the historical stages of capitalism, mainly from a Marxist perspective, and were centered on the concept of the “Bismarckian nationalization” of Japanese railways. It may be helpful to compare the two railway nationalization programs by closely examining the negotiations between local German states and the institutions involved in German railway centralization: the Imperial Railway Bureau and the Prussian Railway Central Bureau. Our inquiry into the official documents (mainly those of the Prussian Kingdom) about railway nationalization in the German Empire shows that the particular obstacles to German railway nationalization had many facets and that the establishment of a central administrative office was technically difficult given the federal system in place. These findings indicate that (1) an accurate subject for a historical comparison with Japanese railway nationalization is not the German national railway integration by the imperial government, but rather the official Prussian purchase of railways, and (2) organizational trial and error in the centralization of the technological railway administration in Germany was identical to Japan’s due to the common reaction to the problems with the railway systems at the turn of century.