Japanese Rail Freight

>and Europe
Better than Japan maybe, but nod really.

>>1045236
Japan is a mountainous island with limited natural resources - so rail is more expensive to build, there's fewer bulk materials to be transported than in most countries of comparable geographic size, and sea transport is a competitor in many places.

>>1045244
Japan is only the size of California and most of the population is concentrated in a few major urban areas on the coasts so it makes more sense to ship most goods by water or trucks.

>>1045236
>European rail freight.
>Good.
They still don't even have a standardized coupler.

The only tracks JR Freight owns is the depots/yards and leading into them

Freight trains also eat more paths than passenger and the JR running the line would like to be paid adequately for that, preferably to make up for what could've otherwise been a passenger train in daylight hours

Additionally, you have many transport companies in Japan. It's easier and faster for them to handle things end to end rather than go intermodal

>>1045236
Lack of international connection?

>>1045236
Hokkaido do rely heavily on freight rail to transport much of its produce to southern islands, so much so that they're considering on using the shinkansen line and developed a shinkansen train specifically to transport them good.

Currently they're using conventional rail (running on 1067mm tracks). The problem is that these freight trains (as well as the express trains) shared the Seikan tunnel with Shinkansen and the latter had to slow down whenever they're inside the tunnel lest the slower, narrower freight trains may tip over and derail (due to pressure generated by the much faster shinkansen)

File: Japan train on Ferry, Yotei Maru Tokyo, c1950s.jpg (1B, 486x500px)

1B, 486x500px

>>1045375
Not exactly. Japan do go above and beyond with their trains so much so that there were ferries that transport trains back and forth to hokkaido back before Seikan tunnel was built

>>1045623
but i don't think they're still doing it to korea or russia

>>1045622
I read that a plan is to build a wall inside the tunnel so pressure one side won't affect the other?

>>1047728

They thought of multiple solutions to that problem, but they are uncertain which ones they will go for since there are drawbacks. And yes, they actually mentioned "Build a second Seikan Tunnel" and "Revive freight train ferry" but they are reconsidered to be unrealistic due to time and cost

http://www.mlit.go.jp/common/000224840.pdf