How Japan saved Tokyo's rail network from collapse (part 1, 1945-1982)
It's very impressive to see these decades-longs projects pay off, in one way or another. Every single line extension, station change, is an entire political battle and story. A fractal of stories waiting to be discovered.<p>One extremely important detail for me when I hear about JNR (Now JR East/West etc) and privatization: during privatization, all the Shinkansen debt in particular was held onto by the public. Extremely expensive infrastructure (now a money printer, at least the Tokyo <-> Osaka segment), just handed to private investors.<p>Of course JR works well as a whole now and it's not like society is worse off, but it's always left a bit of a poor taste in my mouth.<p>(For people wanting some more interesting transportation content: here[0] is an excellent overview of IC cards and integration of all the systems in the 2000s)<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr62/pdf/6-15_web.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.ejrcf.or.jp/jrtr/jrtr62/pdf/6-15_web.pdf</a>