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Keisei Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (京成電鉄) is a railway company with its head office in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. It runs lines in eastern Tokyo wards and in northern Chiba Prefecture, and is the core company of the Keisei Group.
History
Keisei's name comes from Tokyo (京) and Narita (成), the two ends of its line. Many railways in Japan were founded to carry visitors to temples and shrines, and Narita-san Shinshoji temple had drawn many visitors since the Edo period. In 1897 the first Narita Railway opened from Sakura station of the Sobu Railway. Three rival groups that had applied for an electric railway from Tokyo to Narita merged and applied in 1903. In 1909 the company Keisei Electric Railway (京成電気軌道) was founded. Its first operating line was the man-powered Teishaku tramway (帝釈人車軌道), which it bought in April 1912. On 3 November 1912 the first electric section opened, from Oshiage to Ichikawa and from Kanamaki to Shibamata. The line was extended step by step: Shibamata to Kanamachi in 1913, Edogawa to Ichikawa-Nitta in 1914, Ichikawa-Nitta to Nakayama in 1915, and Nakayama to Funabashi in 1916. It reached Chiba city in 1921. Its Chiba station was closer to the centre of the city than the Government Railway's station.
From 1925 Keisei extended the line toward Narita. Tsudanuma to Shisui opened on 9 December 1926, and Shisui to Narita Hanazaki-cho opened on 24 December 1926, linking Tokyo and Narita. To get a station nearer the temple gate, Keisei bought Narita Electric Railway (成田電気軌道) in 1925, but shopkeepers at the gate objected, and Keisei Narita station was placed at its present site on 25 April 1930. Keisei also wanted to extend the line from Oshiage to Asakusa, but that plan was dropped in 1928. In October 1930 Keisei absorbed the Tsukuba High-Speed Electric Railway (筑波高速度電気鉄道), whose licence ran from Nippori toward Tsukuba, after a contest with Tobu. Nippori to Aoto opened on 19 December 1931, and Nippori to Ueno Park (now Keisei Ueno) opened on 10 December 1933, giving the company the central Tokyo extension it had long wanted. The Ueno section ran underground beneath Ueno Park, the first case of its kind for a suburban line in Tokyo. Two short branches were also opened and later closed: the Yatsu branch (1927 to 1934) and the Shirahige line (1928 to 1936).
Besides trains, Keisei ran electricity supply, buses, land sales and a Yatsu amusement park. In 1936 it set up a meat-processing plant at Makuhari, and in 1938 it founded Teito Taxi (帝都タクシー). In 1942 it sold its electricity supply business to Kanto Haiden, a wartime power company that was a forerunner of Tokyo Electric Power. Under wartime rules it became the core company for bus services in the region. The second Sobu Railway was merged into Tobu in the same process, and the loss of that company is said to have been one reason for founding Shin-Keisei later. In 1943 the Navy and the Railway Ministry ordered Keisei to build and run a 77 km railway on Celebes Island (now Sulawesi), in Japanese-occupied Indonesia. A company set up with Keisei money, Celebes Development Railway (セレベス開発鉄道), finished 8.6 km of it by 17 August 1944. A 42 km line on Borneo was also ordered, and 10 km of track was laid before the war ended. Both railways were abandoned when the war ended. During the war the Transport Ministry took over the underground tunnel between Nippori and Ueno Park as a shelter. On 25 June 1945 the company changed its name to Keisei Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (京成電鉄株式会社). Service on the tunnel line resumed on 1 October 1945 after the takeover ended.
In October 1946 Keisei founded Shin-Keisei Electric Railway (新京成電鉄) to use a former army training line in Chiba. Permission to use the land came in March 1946, and the licence in August 1946. In 1950 Keisei applied to extend a line to Yurakucho in central Tokyo. In June 1957 the Ministry of Transport decided, by administrative guidance, that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Eidan subway operator would build the subway network, and that private railways would run into it. Keisei and Keikyu would run into Line 1 (now the Asakusa Line). Their gauges differed: Keisei was 1372 mm and Keikyu 1435 mm. The standard 1435 mm gauge was chosen. Keisei changed its whole line in stages over 50 days, from 9 October to 1 December 1959. In 1958 Chiba station moved to its present site during the postwar rebuilding of the city, and opened there on 10 February 1958 as a temporary station. On 4 December 1960 Keisei began through running with Toei Line 1 between Oshiage and Higashi-Nakayama, the first case in Japan of a private railway running into a public subway.
From 1959 Keisei brought several transport companies in Chiba and Ibaraki under its control, including Joso Tsukuba Railway (May 1959), Kashima Sangu Railway (November 1959) and Choshi Electric Railway (November 1960), along with bus companies. It also grew its retail and property businesses, including Oriental Land (1960). In the 1970s new lines took passengers away. The Tozai Line of the Eidan reached Nishi-Funabashi in 1969, and in 1972 the Sobu Line's Tokyo to Tsudanuma section was made four-track for the Sobu Rapid Line. Keisei then bought land and developed businesses in Tohoku and Hokkaido, and invested in new-town lines: Hokuso Railway (1972), Chiba Kyuko Railway (1973) and Toyo Rapid (1981). In 1968 it applied for a licence for a line to the new Tokyo International Airport at Narita, a project decided in 1966. The Ministry of Transport and the airport corporation refused to let it run under the terminal building, so a station was built between the first and second terminals. Work began in November 1970 and was finished in November 1972, and trial running began in February 1973. Protests delayed the airport's opening, and the line could not run for a little over six years. The first Narita Airport station (now Higashi-Narita) opened on 21 May 1978, when the Skyliner service started.
In 1977 the company was hit by the oil shock while it was making large investments, and its 1977 financial year ended with no dividend. Land values fell, interest costs rose and accumulated losses grew. From 1980 to 1990 Keisei went through what Japanese Wikipedia calls a dark period, the only one of its kind for a Japanese private railway after the war. In March 1980 it left the Japan Private Railway Association, and it rejoined in April 1990. In October 1980 it adopted a recovery plan with a 25% cut in staff, closed its group department stores, and sold assets such as the Yatsu park site and the Tsudanuma car works. Oriental Land's success in winning Tokyo Disneyland, and the cost cuts, helped recovery. In the first half of 1988 the company returned to ordinary profit for the first time in 12 years, and in the first half of 1989 it cleared its accumulated losses. On 19 March 1991 Keisei began running into the Narita Airport terminal together with JR East.
In the 21st century Keisei bought new trains and hired many station staff. In June 2008 it adopted a defence against hostile takeovers, which it abolished in 2019. On 17 July 2010 the Narita Sky Access line (成田スカイアクセス線) opened, linking Nippori and Narita Airport Terminal 2 in 36 minutes at the fastest, via the Hokuso line. The head office moved from Oshiage to Ichikawa on 17 September 2013. In September 2022 Shin-Keisei became a wholly owned subsidiary through a simple share exchange. In October 2024 Keisei agreed a capital and business alliance with Aeon. In 2025 Keisei merged Shin-Keisei into itself and renamed the Shin-Keisei line the Matsudo Line. On 1 October 2026 Keisei bought all the shares of Chiba Nichiyu, which runs petrol stations, and made it a wholly owned subsidiary.
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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.
