戦前に存在した「幻の新幹線」とは？

The Shinkansen began operating as the world's first high-speed railway in 1964. The Shinkansen carried more than 5.5 billion passengers in the second half of the century and supported the growth of Japan after the war. By the way, did you know that there was a high-speed railway concept in Japan before the war? The era goes back to the 1930s during the Sino-Japanese War. At that time, Japan needed to transport a large number of goods to China due to the deterioration of the war. However, the railways in Japan at that time could not cope with this, and there was an overwhelming lack of transport capacity for large demands. Therefore, a bullet train plan was launched to strengthen the transport capacity by a railway that could travel long distances at high speed. Shimonoseki is a terminal station in Japan, passing through Nagoya and Osaka as the first station in Tokyo. From here, it will pass through Tsushima and connect to Busan, Keijo, and Houten in Korea, and finally to Beijing. The speed was 100 km per hour, and it took 9 hours to get to Shimonoseki and 50 hours to get to Beijing. At that time, it was an amazing speed worthy of the name of a bullet train. The people were delighted with this hopeful news, but there were many obstacles to the bullet train plan. First of all, tunnel construction, which covers 24% of the total cost, was very difficult, especially the new tunnel in Atami, which is expected to take 7 years, including a total length of 8 km. By the way, the construction of Yochi was done quite efficiently due to the situation of war and anti-corruption. And the biggest challenge of the bullet train plan is how to connect Kyushu and Korea. At first, there was a plan to build a railway connection before the Shimonoseki tunnel was opened, but as a high-speed railway, it was too inefficient, so it was decided to build a submarine tunnel. This tunnel runs through Tsushima, and the tunnel on the Kyushu side was technically possible, but the tunnel on the Korean side was difficult, so instead of a submarine, it was decided to build a tunnel in the sea. However, the military opposed the bullet train because it had a military purpose, and the Korean side was also going to build a submarine tunnel. As for the vehicles used in the bullet train, Hideo Shima, who later led the Shinkansen project, pointed out the necessity of trains by the power distribution method, but the military opposed it by saying that if a train is attacked, the whole line will stop, and the power concentration method was adopted by steam locomotives. Fortunately, the high-speed operation of steam locomotives was somewhat successful on the Asia Line of Minamimanshu Railway. However, there was a problem that steam locomotives were full of smoke in the tunnel, so the development of electric locomotives that could run at a speed of 200 km per hour also began. In this way, the policy was organized to some extent, and construction began with the aim of opening within 15 years from 1940. However, due to the deterioration of the election, there was a growing demand for the bullet train project, which required huge costs and labor. Unfortunately, most of the construction was canceled except for a part of it, and in 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally and lost all overseas land, which lost the original intention of strengthening transportation to the continent. In this way, the bullet train project ended in an illusion and was forgotten for a while after the war. However, many of the facilities and technologies acquired in the bullet train project, as well as the tunnels built, were used for the Shinkansen. At that time, the Shinkansen project was a large-scale project with no precedent, but it progressed faster than expected because of the accumulation in the bullet train project. By the way, this bullet train project was also proposed to be further advanced than Beijing. This was proposed by former president of Manchuria Railways, Jotaro Yamamoto, and he talks about it in his book as follows in the concept of the Central Asian Crossing Railway. If you go to the North Sea, the Mediterranean Sea is right in front of you. The large area of 1.7 million or 2 million square kilometers, including the Central Asian Crossing, Koto, Mouko, and Shinkyo, is still almost uninhabited as in the primitive times, and the British and Russians, who are as dangerous as the Nakantsuku Shinkyo, are trying to control the Japanese-style people and make this large area their own from the south and the north, but it is not clear whether this is the case or not. There is probably a lot of land there that can absorb hundreds of millions of people, and there is a lot of natural resources such as wool and cotton that can be produced. Whether this natural area should be developed by the power of our Yamato people, and whether the Central Asian Crossing Railway should be built first. It can be expected that a bright scene that will engulf the history of the world will unfold from there. It is not the aim of the young people to develop a peaceful, cultural, and economically uninhabited area for the sake of humanity's justice and happiness, rather than to invade the land as they did in the past. Eight years after Yamamoto announced this idea, the Central Asian Crossing Railway Survey Department was established in 1941, and four main routes were proposed, as a result of which more specific routes were discussed. Three of them were the Central Baghdad and Teheran terminal stations. And the reason why there are routes extending to Berlin is that the Japan-U.S. trade agreement was signed in 1936, and Japan-U.S. exchanges became more active. In some cases, there were plans to use the Siberian Railway, but it was politically impossible because the Soviet Union was regarded as a virtual country. When it comes to long-distance routes that connect Asia and Europe, it is difficult to identify stars due to the intense difference in the environment, such as the scorching desert, the thin air of the mountains, and the flatness of the crust. So, some completely new vehicles, different from conventional railways, were devised, including linear motor cars. Kuboto Keiichi, the director of the Survey Department, said, Linear motor cars are completely automated, and the speed is not even 500 km per hour. And this has become a reality as a Linear Central Shinkansen after 80 years. Bullet trains, Central Asia-bound railways were never realized by Japanese railways, but there is a country that has been pushing large-scale express railways in the same way in recent years. That is China. Looking at the route map of China's express railways, only two were built in 2008, but they spread all over the country in just 10 years. The main purpose of express railways is to make the movement of cities smoother and to revitalize the economy, but express railways in China have a different meaning. Looking at the route map again, there is a long route that extends only one outside, which connects Lanzhou and Urumqi in 11 hours. Lanzhou and Urumqi are not small cities, but they are already connected by plane in two hours, so it doesn't make sense to take 11 hours to move. Despite the huge construction costs, there are few users and there is a huge red flag. So why does the Chinese Communist Party expand such a route that does not fit? The answer is not in the economy, but in politics. Urumqi belongs to the new Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Uyghurs are a minority who believe in Islam, and they have a strong desire for independence from China in history, and the Communist Party is taking all measures to suppress it. The Chinese Communist Party has forcibly closed many mosques, placing many security cameras and police stations in the name of maintaining security, and restricting internal information. The rebellious Uyghurs have been housed in re-education facilities, and some of them have been auctioned off. In other words, this expressway was built to weaken the function of independence by strengthening the ties between the Uyghurs and China as part of it. In addition, such a route is also seen in the expressway connecting Hong Kong and China. Hong Kong has been promised to maintain a one-state system until 2046 since its conversion, but the Chinese Communist Party has strengthened its relationship with Hong Kong, and its distrust of China has increased. Therefore, when a expressway was built between Hong Kong and China, there was a strong voice of opposition, but the Chinese Communist Party strengthened the construction and firmly promoted the integration with Hong Kong. China has also expanded its railway network to neighboring countries as part of the one-state system, and the concept of a cross-Asia railway has already been proposed by the United Nations, centering on China. Someday, railways such as bullet trains and cross-Asia railways in Central Asia may be completed. Thank you for watching.