Sentetsu
Chosen Government Railway
朝鮮總督府鐵道
조선총독부 철도
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| Locale |
Korea |
| Dates of operation |
1910–1945 |
| Predecessor |
Gyeongin Railway, Gyeongbu Railway, military railways, etc |
| Track gauge |
1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in)
762 mm (2 ft 6 in) |
| Electrification |
3000 V DC (1,435 mm) |
| Headquarters |
Gyeongseong |
| Chosen Government Railway |
| Japanese name |
| Kanji |
朝鮮總督府鐵道 |
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|
| Alternate Japanese name |
| Kanji |
鮮鐵 |
|
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| Korean name |
| Hangul |
조선총독부 철도 |
| Hanja |
朝鮮總督府鐵道 |
|
|
| Alternate Korean name |
| Hangul |
선철 |
| Hanja |
鮮鐵 |
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The Chosen Government Railway (Japanese: 朝鮮總督府鐵道, Chōsen Sōtokufu Tetsudō; Korean: 조선총독부 철도, Joseon Chongdokbu Cheoldo) was a state-owned railway company in Korea under Japanese rule. It was a department of the Railway Bureau (Japanese: 鐵道局, Tetsudōkyoku; Korean: 철도국, Cheoldoguk) of the Government-General of Korea, whose functions were the management and operation of railways in Korea, as well as the supervision of privately owned railway companies.
After the end of the Second World War, all railways in Korea were nationalised, with the lines in South Korea becoming part of the Korean National Railroad, and those in North Korea becoming part of the Korean State Railway.
The organisation of the Railway Bureau as of 1 September 1941:
Sentetsu, or more accurately its predecessor, the National Railway, was created through the merger of the military railways and the Gyeongbu Railway, which had previously absorbed the Gyeongin Railway, on 1 September 1906. At the time of the merger, the Korean locomotive fleet was as follows:
When the National Railway became Sentetsu in 1910, the locomotive fleet had increased by only 21 engines; by the time Mantetsu took over the management of Korea's railways in 1917, the Sentetsu motive power fleet had grown from 115 in 1910 to 175. Mantetsu management lasted just under a decade, and by the time Sentetsu regained its independence in 1925 the locomotive park stood at 247 engines. The 1930s, however, saw enormous growth in Sentetsu's fleet. From 302 locomotives in 1930, by the end of the decade the number had more than doubled to 740 engines in 1940, and reached 1,000 in 1944. When Sentetsu was abolished after the end of the Pacific War there were 1,302 locomotives on the roster.
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Wikipedia
