The Hokkaido Railway Company (北海道旅客鉄道株式会社, Hokkaidō Ryokaku Tetsudō Kabushiki-gaisha?) is one of the constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group), and is often referred to using its official abbreviation of JR Hokkaido (JR北海道, Jeiāru Hokkaidō?). It operates intercity rail services in Hokkaido, Japan. The company introduced Kitaca, a smart card ticketing system, from autumn 2008.
At the time of its privatization in 1987, JR Hokkaido operated 21 railway lines totalling 3,176.6 km of track, as well as a ferry service to Aomori. Since then, that number has dwindled to just below 2,500 km, as unprofitable lines have been shut down or spun off (in the case of the Hokkaidō Chihoku Kōgen Railway). The ferry service has also been replaced by the Seikan Tunnel.
Hokkaido Railway's headquarters are in Chūō-ku, Sapporo.
Read more about Hokkaido Railway Company: History, Headquarters and Branch Offices
Famous quotes containing the words railway and/or company:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“We noticed several other sandy tracts in our voyage; and the course of the Merrimack can be traced from the nearest mountain by its yellow sand-banks, though the river itself is for the most part invisible. Lawsuits, as we hear, have in some cases grown out of these causes. Railroads have been made through certain irritable districts, breaking their sod, and so have set the sand to blowing, till it has converted fertile farms into deserts, and the company has had to pay the damages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)