Fukuoka: 150-meter-long Train Rails Make Journey Across Japan; Delivery After Covering 2,100 Kilometers

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The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:54 JST, June 21, 2025

KITAKYUSHU — Train rails measuring 150 meters each have been making a trip of about 2,100 kilometers from Kitakyushu, where they were produced, to Oshamambe, a town in Hokkaido.

The rails are being laid on tracks along a roughly 212-kilometer section of the Hokkaido Shinkansen bullet train line between Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto Station and Sapporo Station.

Transportation of the rails began in April.

According to the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, Nippon Steel Corp.’s Kyushu Works, which manufactures the rails, is the only firm in Japan possessing freight cars exclusively for transporting 150-meter-long rails.

This is the first time that the company’s 150-meter-long rails have been transported as far as Hokkaido. Previously, the rails were cut into 25-meter-long pieces, which were transported via ship or trailer and welded together where they were laid. A storage space for the long rails secured in Oshamambe has made it possible to transport them in their long form.

A total of 400 rails of the length are scheduled to be transported to the town in Hokkaido through fiscal 2027.

On the first day that the rails were transported, about 20 train fans waited at a spot where they could take head-on photos of the train in motion around 90 minutes before the scheduled passage time. Then, more people gathered in the area, and there were eventually so many it became hard to move.

A 20-year-old university student, who visited from Mie Prefecture, said: “I’ve waited here for three hours. I’m glad as I could take the kind of photos I was hoping to get.”