This was a great completion of the story of the end of JNR. I'm looking forward to more of the contemporary history of JR in the early days. I thank you for your work very much on this. You've brought a lot of light to this subject which is so rich with history in the Japanese railways to us.
There will be one more in the JNR series. I will be looking at the first post-privatization years of JR and whether the promises made about what privatization will do for Japan and Japanese rail indeed came true.
A bit of discussion on Naked Capitalism about the astronomical costs of building transit in the US contained in All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/all-aboard-the-bureaucracy-train this is about transit and not rail. There is some mention of Japan in the article and NC comments. I posted links to your substack about JR.
Of course the situation with rail transit and both passenger and freight railroads in the US is horrendous.
Thanks for sharing! Feel free to share where on NC the discourse may be taking place. A secondary purpose of this series to foster a better discourse about what is and what is not the case with rail transit in Japan — a highly fetishized but often misunderstood topic.
Good work, looking forward to seeing the rest of the series too! I like the photo of R. Reagan, as I sometimes tell my Japanese friends, R. Reagan is the president who nuked Japan for a 3rd time. Now it's a race between Taiwan and South Korea to see who gets nuked next.
One can only guess what is going on behind this operation, is it an oligarch with some personal tie, is it a tax dodge, is it a front for bank loans to develop real estate, ... All of these probably were the dodges behind the use of neoliberal ideology to kill off JNR.
This was a great completion of the story of the end of JNR. I'm looking forward to more of the contemporary history of JR in the early days. I thank you for your work very much on this. You've brought a lot of light to this subject which is so rich with history in the Japanese railways to us.
Will, thank you for reading and commenting. Readers like you make this project possible.
There will be one more in the JNR series. I will be looking at the first post-privatization years of JR and whether the promises made about what privatization will do for Japan and Japanese rail indeed came true.
A bit of discussion on Naked Capitalism about the astronomical costs of building transit in the US contained in All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/all-aboard-the-bureaucracy-train this is about transit and not rail. There is some mention of Japan in the article and NC comments. I posted links to your substack about JR.
Of course the situation with rail transit and both passenger and freight railroads in the US is horrendous.
Thanks for sharing! Feel free to share where on NC the discourse may be taking place. A secondary purpose of this series to foster a better discourse about what is and what is not the case with rail transit in Japan — a highly fetishized but often misunderstood topic.
Good work, looking forward to seeing the rest of the series too! I like the photo of R. Reagan, as I sometimes tell my Japanese friends, R. Reagan is the president who nuked Japan for a 3rd time. Now it's a race between Taiwan and South Korea to see who gets nuked next.
Separately, I hope you find this both entertaining and informative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NWyuHocdvc
One can only guess what is going on behind this operation, is it an oligarch with some personal tie, is it a tax dodge, is it a front for bank loans to develop real estate, ... All of these probably were the dodges behind the use of neoliberal ideology to kill off JNR.