President, Railway Technical Research Institute
Railways have been in service for more than 150 years in the world and over 120 years in Japan. During the course of this 120 years of railway history in Japan, technological emphasis has shifted from civil engineering to mechanical, from mechanical to electric, then to information system and most recently to environmental engineering. Railways are now going into the era of high technologies. In Japan, for the first 50 years of railway development most of technological needs were in civil engineering to excavate tunnels, build bridges and construct roadbeds. For rolling stocks, Japan was far behind Europe and the US and therefore until about 80 years ago, we had to import rolling stocks from abroad except freight cars. It was approximately 25-30 years ago when Japan finally caught up wiht these advanced countries and started indigenous production of rolling stocks. Thus mechanical engineering played the most important role in the era of steam locomotive. Then came the World War II. As Japan was defeated, its railways had been seriously damaged. However, as Japan recovers form the aftermath of the War, railways started not only to return to their pre-war level of operations but also to be modernised with the advent of energy revolution. During the 25 years period after the War, more and more rail lines were electrified and further steam locomotives were replaced with diesel/electric locomotives and cars. We consider this post war period and era of electric engineering. After the era of electrification, railways entered into the next phase of information systems engineering. During this period of technological advancement, high speed train system called Shinkansen was inaugurated in Japan, followed by other high speed train systems in Europe. Though rail industries took the initiative in the introduction of information systems and led other industries, they were rather slow in its full utilisation, and soon lagged behind other industries. In the mean while, certain rail transport had been taken over by air and highways, however, it became clear that highways or air alone cannot cope with ever-increasing traffic demands. However superb the highways become, traffic jam still cannot be eliminated. Likewise, whatever large airports are constructed, their capacities soon become saturated. Therefore proper combination of the three modes of transportation became important. High-speed operation made passenger rail travel more attractive and convenient not only in Japan but also in Europe as symbolised by the term "reinstatement of railways." Of course, electrification and computerised train control systems were indispensable for the reinstatement. Currently, one of the global environmental concerns is carbon dioxide emission from use of fossil fuels. Rail is the cleanest means of transportation, however, is associated with other environmental issues of noise and vibration. Japan is most advanced in R&D on their noise and vibration problems. Perhaps, one idea to solve noise problem is to run railways underground in the future. We are now in a new railway age, where reinstatement is becoming a reality. Cost saving is getting even more important for raiwlay industries. Efficient use of rolling stocks and tracks to increase availability is certainly required to abate cost. To optimise the existing infrastructure for higher-speed train operation, a new version of train control system is required. This will also help increase safety. Certain technologies that are already used by air lines must be introduced to railways. If they can do it, why can't we do it also? As Dr. Korpanec, Director of ERRI puts it, a future course of railway is an introduction of "intelligent trains on intelligent tracks". Certainly I share his view, and strongly believe that railways in the future will be even safer and cost effective.