It is vacation season, when train travel is a joy, so today's story is about trains. Say what you will, Japan is a "railway kingdom." Modern Japan grew on the back of its postal service and railways, and the empire expanded along its rail lines. The Meiji government dispatched the Iwakura Mission to the United States and Europe to learn the systems of a modern state and its railways. Railways later became a symbol of Japan's modernization. In time, they also became a tool of aggression aimed at colonial Korea and Manchuria. The South Manchuria Railway was the artery that sustained the Japanese Empire's continental invasion, and Ito Hirobumi, who designed the invasion of the Korean Peninsula, met his end at Harbin Station.
For the Japanese, railways are a familiar part of daily life. The rail network connects all of Japan like capillaries, and in every small town, trains wrapped in animation characters run through the landscape like scenes from a fairy tale. The Shinkansen that keeps time with military precision, the trains that densely connect cities, and the regional railways that cut through seas and mountains are quintessentially Japanese scenery. The rice paddies and seas, mountain villages and small station buildings that come into view outside the train window evoke nostalgia. Sometimes a train journey lingers in memory longer than a famous tourist destination.
Such simple scenery is gradually disappearing. There is news that regional railways are being discontinued one after another. According to Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, railways discontinued between 1996 and 2025 amount to approximately 1,366 kilometers. That means about 5 percent of the entire rail network has vanished. In Hokkaido and the Tohoku region in particular, line closures have followed as population decline and aging have converged. Stations and unmanned stations with fewer than 10 passengers a day are no longer a special sight but an everyday reality.
In Japan, railways are a lifeline that sustains communities. For local residents such as commuting students and the elderly, they are an indispensable means of getting around. When the tracks are severed, young people leave for the cities, shops close, and villages age more quickly. Severing the tracks means that residents' daily lives come to a halt as well. Line closures are both a result brought about by regional extinction and a fuse that hastens it.
Last year, I felt this reality at a small abandoned station in Hokkaido. The old station nameplate was rusted, and where the timetable had once been posted hung a notice of the station's closure. In front of the station, weeds grew thick in place of people. Shumarinai Station, once bustling with people, seemed as if even time had stopped. Similar scenes can be seen on Hiroshima's Geibi Line, the Ou Main Line connecting Akita and Aomori, and other branch lines in Hokkaido. Every local government is straining to save its regional railways, but it is not enough to stem the tide. Buses have been brought in as an alternative means of transport, but they fall short of trains in convenience of travel.
Nishi-Oyama Station, the southernmost railway station, located in Ibusuki City, Kagoshima Prefecture, was in a similar situation. A calm sea stretches out in front, while behind it Kaimon-dake, which resembles Mount Fuji, rises tall. At the shabby unmanned station, there were more photography enthusiasts than passengers. As the train slowly pulled in, the once-silent area around the station grew noisy with the sound of camera shutters. People did not hesitate to travel far to see this scenery. The small station that connects landscape and people held a power to draw people in. It was the same at the northernmost station, Wakkanai Station. Travelers were busy taking photos in front of the "northernmost station" sign.
Some 10 years ago, on a spring day, I traveled around Shikoku by train. The Seto Inland Sea stretched out along the path where the tracks ran, and at each small station residents waved warmly. It was a kind of emotion hard to encounter on a road trip. Until then, I had thought of railways as an everyday part of life that sustained the regions. But as railways disappeared one by one, an emptiness washed over me, as if losing an old friend. In Japan, train travel is not merely the process of arriving at a destination. It is a journey of feeling the changing seasons, eating a boxed lunch, and encountering unfamiliar towns. As line closures increase, that sense of anticipation is disappearing as well.
As mentioned earlier, Japan built a modern rail network earlier than anywhere else in Asia. Its railway construction technology and operational capacity were also the best in the world at the time. Japanese imperialism laid railways across the Korean Peninsula for the purposes of colonial rule and resource exploitation. That the same Japan is now tearing up its tracks makes the passage of time feel fleeting.
Line closures are a reality not far off for us either, as regional extinction proceeds rapidly. Some regional railways have already faced operational difficulties as ridership has plunged. Of course, line closures in Korea are different in nature from those in Japan. In most cases, Korea has replaced existing lines with new tracks in the process of building the KTX and converting to double-track electrified lines. This differs from Japan, where the railways themselves disappear due to declining ridership and regional extinction. Even so, as long as regional extinction does not stop, we too will find it hard to avoid a gloomy future. Regional railways can keep running only when passengers and regions grow together.
What disappears in the place where a train has stopped is not only the tracks. It is people, villages, and memories. The line closures of Japan's regional railways show that regional extinction has arrived as a reality before our eyes. Someday we too may face the same scene. That is why, this summer, I want to set off on a train journey.
