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| Railway History in Japan |
A railway station was opened for the first time in
1872 in Japan. Running of the U.K make steam locomotive between
Tokyo (Shimbashi ) and Yokohama (Sakuragicho Station) astonished
people, and make the event epochal in history.
In 1895, Kyoto Electric Railway operated tramcars between Kyoto-Station
and Fushimi for the first time, which was the start of the modernization
of urban transportation in Japan. Since then, the railway technology
in our country made a remarkable progress and the domestic manufacturing
of train bodies and rails rapidly advanced. But for main electric
equipment including traction motors, and control equipments as
a heart of the train, we had to depend on import.
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| Hanwa Electric Railway Loco 1001 (approximately 1930) |
| Internationalization of Japanese Railway Industry |
| Under such circumstances, World War I began in 1914. During the
munitions boom, the electric railway tended to grow and flourish,
but the import of important the electric equipments stopped. Then,
the tendency to manufacture the electric equipments for vehicles
on our own instead of depending on the imported products started
and grew in the railway industry, as well as other industries
in Japan. |
Establishment of Toyo Denki
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In 1917, Mr. Kaichi Watanabe (the first president of our company)
long known as a pioneer of the electric railway industry in Japan,
president of then Ishikawajima Ship Building Co, (now called as
IHI), and a director of Keihan Electric Railway Co, made technical
cooperation with a British company, Dick Kerr & Co., Ltd. (later
changed to English Electric Co.), world-famous as an electric
machine manufacturer, and subsequently on June 20, 1918, he planned
the domestic production of the company's products and established
Toyo Denki Seizo K.K. with the capital of 3 million yen.
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Odawara Express Electric Railway Deki 201 Cabin
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In the following year, our company constructed its Yokohama Factory
in a good location (Nishikubo-machi Hodogaya-ku of Yokohama City),
west of the Yokohama Port, then the best prosperous trading port
in our Japan. Simultaneously with the factory construction, our
company started manufacturing activities, and in 1920, it completed
its first control equipments and traction motors and delivered
them to Keihan Electric Railway Co. They were well received and
it was a good opportunity to start the delivery of the products
to main electric railway companies across Japan, thus establishing
the position of our company as a specialist manufacturer.
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| Odawara Express Electric Railway Deki 201 |
| Naming of the Company |
The development of Japan's domestic railway industry was rapidly accelerated by historical developments in the early 19th century, when the outbreak of World War I in 1914 led to interruptions in the supply of electrical equipment from Europe to Japan.
The charter originally establishing Toyo Denki as a company stated that development of Japan's domestic railway industry would help to meet Japanese demand for railway equipment in the face of interruptions in supply from other countries due to the outbreak of World War I, and that a domestic railway industry would create an alternative to imports and prevent the outflow of capital from Japan. The charter also outlined the company's mission of exporting Japanese railway equipment to other countries in the Orient, which would bring in foreign currency and contribute to Japan.
It was decided to name the firm Toyo Denki Seizo (literally "Oriental Electric Manufacturing") to reflect the sweeping vision of developing Japan's domestic railway industry and exporting products to the rest of the Orient, for the benefit of Japan's industrial development.
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| Yokohama Works Today |
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