I'm writing about Japanese trains and how people enjoy trains in Japan lately in my posts on October 14th (Yuko's Japan Guide), also 18th and 19th (Yuko Takayama). Then there is one more factor which helps to increase the popularity of trains and I'd like to introduce it this time. In these years, many of Japanese companies and even municipalities have some mascots like baseball teams and they help these companies by giving friendly feeling to people. What's more, actually these mascots can cause a situation that they get people's attention and make the company or municipality popular. Since Japanese people love mascots and it happens often, so companies and municipalities are nowadays very serious about having a cute or characteristic mascots. Of course, train companies are not exception. Today, most companies have some characters for their train lines and they also sell many products featuring their mascots, such as pens, notes, and sweets. A good example of it would be "Suica Penguin" which is a mascot of JR East (East Japan Railroad Company). You might have seen it already, since the mascot design is on their prepaid e-money card called "Suica". The penguin character was originally created for the Suica card because prepaid e-money card was a completely new way to pay train fees at that time. the company tried to get people's attention to push the big change from paying by cash to using prepaid e-money cards. The penguin character became really popular quickly, probably more than the company expected. Some people got "Suica card", not to try the new system but to get a card with the cute penguin character. Today, the Suica penguin became the image character of JR East company and we can find many Suica Penguin goods at shops inside or beside stations of JR East company. I guess to get a popular mascot brought a very strong advantage for the train company because the population of train lovers consists of mainly men and boys since old times, but with the character the company got many women and girls fans anew. Now you can see how important these mascots are, right?
Today, October 14th is a memorial day for Japanese railroad since it is the day the first railroad business of Japan began services 144 years ago. It was fifth year of Japanese first modern government, Meiji Government, which was established after Tokugawa Shogunate government collapsed and Samurai era was ended. At that time, trains run only between Shinbashi in Tokyo and Yokohama in Kanagawa prefecture and the distance was only 18 miles (29 km). However, now train lines are covering all over Japan and it has been the most common means for traveling. It's still much faster than cars' travel and easier than getting on airplanes. Also since Japanese expressway is all toll roads, train fees are not too expensive travel expenses compared with it. In addition, the popularity of train lines is not because of only practical reasons. There are many railroads/trains lovers in Japan. Therefore every time when there is a new train line opened people rush to there. Moreover some of them are really into railroad/train business deeply like railroad-mania, or train-mania and they tend to travel to enjoy train lines than to get on trains to travel to their destinations. Somehow railroads/trains attract people a lot in Japan. The model trains toy shown in the photos is also not only for kids. There are very real train models and some train lovers enjoy making dioramas with them. I don't know when it began but nowadays the maniac-type fans of railroads/trains are called "Tetsu" among people. Funnily, the meaning of the name based on the direct translation would be "Irons", because the Japanese word for "railroad" is "Tetsu-dou (iron-road)". Back to the original topic, in 1922, October 14th was set up as "Railroads' Memorial Day" initially, then the name was changed to "Railroads Day" in 1994. Apparently, every year before and after Trains' Day, special events and festivals related to railroads/trains take place here and there, also at museums of railroads/trains. If you are interested in Japanese railroad/train fan's world, you can take a look at it in these places!
