railway gauge (i)

tetsudo kikan gauge in feet and inches

2ft 6 light railway 3ft 6 JNR/JR 4ft 6 horse tram 4ft 8.5 Shinkansen

railway gauge (ii)

tetsudo kikan gauge in mm

762 light railway 1,067 JNR/JR 1,372 horse tram 1,435 Shinkansen

railway gauge (iii)

a gauge chosen epitomises path dependency

a job lot of 3ft 6 equipment for Ceylon happened to have been rerouted to Japan

railway gauge (iv)

the job lot decided the first major line as 3ft 6 in 1872

the army wanted a regauging to 4ft 8.5 for capacity and promoted nationalisation

railway gauge (v)

a railway to every rice paddy! satirical

2ft 6/3ft 6 or 4ft 8.5 rural versus urban + military conflict over railway budget

railway gauge (vi)

nationalisation was on the Prussian Model in 1906

without budget a regauging did not occur until the very different Shinkansen

Breitspurbahn

German 3m super broad gauge railway

1940s diesel electric network plan for the new Europe cf dangan ressha

nankai dentetsu jiken

Nankai Electric Railway Incident

a socially complicated stock cornering damaging foreign brokers in the 1980s

toei chikatetsu

Tokyo Metropolis managed underground railway

underground railway system managed as a Tokyo LAME vs Tokyo Metro

bunkiten

diverging point forking point

as soneki bunkiten break even point, tetsudo bunkiten railway junction

chika

underground

as chikasui groundwater, koei chikatetsu municipal underground railway

Fukuoka

leading city in Kyushu classically Hakata

Fukuoka main railway station confusingly also named Hakata

kani

simple convenient

as kani seimei hoken easy life assurance, kani tetsudo 2ft 6 gauge light railway

motorways

a motorway to every rice paddy! satirical

rural versus urban + military railway budget dispute revisited cf railway gauge

path dependency

Thomas Hughes 1923 - 2014

technological momentum entrenches a selected technology cf railway gauge