East Japan Railway Company (JR East) is a railway company that runs passenger trains mainly in eastern Japan. It is one of the passenger companies of the JR Group. Its head office is in Shibuya ward, Tokyo.
History
East Japan Railway Company (JR East) was set up on 1 April 1987, when Japanese National Railways (JNR, 国鉄) was split up and privatised. In June 1987 it bought Higashi-Nihon Kiosk, later JR East Retail Net, and made it a subsidiary. Some local lines were not kept. The Aizu Line was closed on 16 July 1987 and became the Aizu Railway. The Kiwara Line became the Isumi Railway on 24 March 1988. The Moka Line became the Moka Railway on 11 April 1988. The Nagai Line became the Yamagata Railway on 25 October 1988. The Ashio Line became the Watarase Keikoku Railway on 29 March 1989. In 1988 JR East set up bus companies for the Tohoku and Kanto areas. On 5 December 1988 a train crashed into the back of another at Higashi-Nakano station on the Chūō Line.
In 1991 JR East began the Ioka IC card, starting on the Yamanote Line. On 20 June 1991 the Tohoku Shinkansen was extended to Tokyo Station. The Yamagata Shinkansen opened on 1 July 1992. Smoking was banned all day on the Yamanote Line, except in smoking corners, from 1 August 1992. From 1 March 1993, smoking was banned all day at 382 stations within 70 km of Tokyo, except in smoking corners. On 26 October 1993 JR East was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In October 1994 it started its own rolling stock factory at Niigata. On 1 October 1996 a Yokohama branch was split from the Tokyo region headquarters. The Akita Shinkansen opened on 22 March 1997, and local express and ordinary trains in the area became non-smoking. On 29 September 1997 the head office moved from the former JNR headquarters building in Marunouchi, Chiyoda ward, to Yoyogi in Shibuya ward. On 1 October 1997 the Hokuriku Shinkansen opened between Takasaki and Nagano. The Shinano Line sections from Yokogawa to Karuizawa were closed, and the Karuizawa to Shinonoi section was transferred to Shinano Railway. On 12 October 1997 a collision happened at Ōtsuki station on the Chūō Line. By 31 March 1998, JR East had closed all the restaurants it ran inside stations, and some passed to group companies.
On 8 April 2000 JR East opened the online mall Eki-net (えきねっと). On 29 November 2000 it announced its medium-term plan 'New Frontier 21'. In June 2001 the revised JR company law was enacted. It removed the three main Honshu companies from the special law, which made JR East a fully private company. On 18 November 2001 the Suica IC card service started. On 1 December 2001 the Shonan-Shinjuku Line began running. In 2002 JR East bought Tokyo Monorail, from Hitachi Logistics, and placed it under the group. Its operation did not change. On 21 June 2002 the government agency that held JR East shares sold all its remaining shares, and full privatisation was complete. On 1 December 2002 the Tohoku Shinkansen was extended from Morioka to Hachinohe. The Tohoku Main Line between Morioka and Hachinohe was transferred to IGR Iwate Ginga Railway and Aoimori Railway. On 1 August 2004 Suica became usable on ICOCA, the IC card of West Japan Railway Company (JR West). It was the first time that an IC card could be used across companies. On 23 October 2004 the Chūetsu earthquake in Niigata caused heavy damage to railway facilities, and the Joetsu Shinkansen was derailed.
On 25 December 2005 a derailment happened on the JR Uetsu Main Line. On 10 February 2006 magnetic IC cards stopped being accepted at automatic gates. On 18 March 2007 all Shinkansen and limited express trains in JR East territory became non-smoking. The same day, Suica became usable with the PASMO card. On 29 March 2008 Suica became usable with TOICA, the IC card of Central Japan Railway Company (JR Central). On 1 April 2008 the company announced the group vision 'Group Management Vision 2020'. On 14 March 2009 Suica became usable with Kitaca. On 13 March 2010 Suica became usable with the IC cards SUGOCA, nimoca and Hayakaken. On 1 February 2010 JR East split its credit card business into a company called View Card. On 1 April 2010 JR East made Kinokuniya its fully owned subsidiary. On 4 December 2010 the Tohoku Shinkansen opened from Hachinohe to Shin-Aomori. The Tohoku Main Line between Hachinohe and Aomori was transferred to Aoimori Railway.
On 11 March 2011 the Great East Japan Earthquake badly damaged railways, mostly in the Tohoku area. Tohoku Shinkansen services stopped, and planned power cuts limited services on short-distance lines in the Tokyo area. The Tohoku Shinkansen between Tokyo and Shin-Aomori resumed on 29 April 2011, on a temporary timetable until 22 September. On 2 April 2012 JR East acquired the railway vehicle business of Tokyu Car Corporation and formed Sōgō Sharyo Seisakusho (総合車両製作所). On 20 August 2012 the Kesennuma Line between Yanaizu and Kesennuma was replaced temporarily by bus rapid transit (BRT). It was JR East's first bus operation since 1988. On 23 March 2013 nationwide IC card mutual use began, and Suica became usable with manaca and PiTaPa. On 1 April 2014 the Iwaizumi Line closed. The Niigata rolling stock factory was split off and transferred to Sōgō Sharyo Seisakusho. On 14 March 2015 the Hokuriku Shinkansen opened between Nagano and Kanazawa. JR East took over the Nagano to Joetsu-Myoko section. The Shinano Line between Nagano and Naoetsu was split between Shinano Railway and Echigo Tokimeki Railway. The same day the Ueno–Tokyo Line opened. On 30 May 2015 the Senseki-Tohoku Line opened between Matsushima and Takagimachi. On 23 February 2016 JR East started the JRE POINT loyalty service. On 26 March 2016 the Tohoku Shinkansen began through running with the Hokkaido Shinkansen between Shin-Aomori and Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto.
On 1 May 2017 the cruise train TRAIN SUITE Shiki-shima began service. On 11 December 2017 a joint venture of Abelio and Mitsui & Co. began running West Midlands Trains in Britain. On 3 July 2018 JR East announced its group vision 'Transformation 2027'. On 23 March 2019 the Yamada Line between Miyako and Kamaishi closed and was transferred to Sanriku Railway. On 1 August 2019 JR East began a shared-office business at four stations in Tokyo, Shinjuku, Ikebukuro and Tachikawa. On 12 October 2019 Typhoon No. 19 caused flooding across many lines. At the Nagano Shinkansen depot, flooding submerged trains. On 30 November 2019 through running with the Sōtetsu Line began, and the Tsurumi to Hazawa Yokohama Kokudai section of the Tokaido Line opened the same day. In January 2020 reinforcement works were found to have been left out on elevated pillars of the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen. On 14 March 2020 the Joban Line between Tomioka and Namie reopened, so all sections closed by the 2011 earthquake were restored, including BRT conversions. On 1 April 2020 rail operation ended on the Kesennuma Line between Yanaizu and Kesennuma, and on the Ōfunato Line between Kesennuma and Sakari. On 1 April 2021 four of JR East's station-retail subsidiaries merged into JR East Cross Station. On 30 June 2021 the Shinkansen public payphone service ended, together with the payphone services of other JR companies. On 30 June 2021 the New York office closed. On 1 March 2022 a Los Angeles office opened and the New York business ended.
On 16 March 2022 an earthquake off Fukushima derailed the Tohoku Shinkansen. On 19 April 2022 JR East announced that it would reorganise its head office and branches from June 2022, to achieve Vision 2027. On 1 October 2022 the Tadami Line between Aizu-Kawaguchi and Tadami restarted. It had been stopped since July 2011, after floods. The line was split: Fukushima Prefecture owns the track, and JR East now runs trains as a second-class railway operator. On 9 May 2024 JR East launched JRE BANK, a digital finance service, in partnership with Rakuten Bank. In September 2024 improper practices in inspection records for wheel and axle assembly were found, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism carried out a special safety audit. On 30 October 2024 the ministry issued an improvement order, and on 31 January 2025 JR East reported its improvements. On 14 March 2026 JR East raised fares for the first time since its founding, apart from changes caused by the consumption tax rate. Fare zones inside the Yamanote Line and the commuter sections were merged into the main line fares, and round-trip and continuous tickets were abolished. On 1 July 2026 the company reorganised: the head office split into group strategy and business execution, and its 2 headquarters and 10 branches were reorganised into 36 business headquarters, which became the basic unit for running their areas. Regular short-distance tickets are planned to switch from magnetic to QR tickets in spring 2027.
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Written by an AI from the company's history on Japanese Wikipedia, nothing else, and checked by a program for dates and numbers that are not in those facts. It can still be wrong. Adapted from Japanese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0; this text is shared under the same licence.
