The main thrust of this study is to shed light on the management situation at the coastal industrial railway, which performed the function of linking factories of the coastal industrial area with the main trunk line, and also to shed light on its relationship with the companies in the coastal industrial area. This is a case study of the Tsurumi Coastal Industrial Railway Co. that was built in the Keihin Industrial Area after the World War I.
What was epoch-making about the coastal industrial area was that it functioned as an ‘industrial port’ which allowed large ships to berth at private wharves. Many companies in the Keihin Industrial Area of the 1920s required overland transport for procurement of materials and resources, and to ship their goods to Tokyo and Yokohama in the hinterlands. Initially, the coastal industrial railway was a plan which petitioned for construction of a branch link from the main trunk line by the government railway. However, in 1924, this changed to a plan where a private railway called the Tsurumi Coastal Industrial Railway would be built after it received investment from land reclamation companies and other companies.
The choice of a private railway helped to rapidly open up the Keihin Industrial Area rail system to traffic, but there were more than a few problems that arose from this. In particular, the high fares for straight-through transport with the government railway led to growing dissatisfaction from the recessionary companies along the railway line during the 1930s.
Many similar problems faced by the management of the private coastal industrial railway receded into the background for a period from the war boom in 1937. However, the protracted nature and worsening course of the war, particularly with respect to freight transportation, were a crushing burden on the Tsurumi Coastal Industrial Railway and was a factor in it being nationalized in 1943.