Rikiishi Heizo was a journalist from Yugawara, a town between Atami and Odawara. The Atami light railway was under construction when he was a boy. Construction workers changed a human-powered railway into a light railway. Rikiishi looked back on his memory of watching this construction work and wrote it down. The story’s author, Akutagawa, embellished Rikiishi’s writing to make the story.