The Japan Rail Atlas collection
Explore Japan’s railways
Explore Japan’s stations, railway lines, trains, and operators. Search by name or browse by category.
Stations
Station histories, photographs and the lines that connect them. Search by name, or explore by region and railway company.
Lines
History, opening, timeline, and sources for each railway line.
Browse Shinkansen and JR company lines
Rolling stock
Shinkansen trainsets plus freight & other locomotives.
Train services
Named Shinkansen services: history, route, and rolling stock.
Operators
Company profiles: history, network, and fleet.
Through services
Through-running networks: trains crossing between systems.
Topics
In-depth explainers on the history and background of Japan’s railways.
By the numbers
On sources: where the English- and Japanese-language accounts of a subject differ, this site defers to the Japanese-language source, generally the fuller and more current record of Japanese railways.