Founded in 1926, the Jomo Electric Railway operates the 25,4Km long Jomo Line, running between Maebashi and Kiryu in Gunma Prefecture.

The line had it’s inception in the late 1910s and early 1920s – with the boom of silk and fabric-related industries in the late Meiji era, there was considerable interest in establishing a reliable transportation link between the silk fields in western Gunma to the processing plants in Kiryu city. At the time, the Ryomo Line of the Japanese Government Railways (JNR since 1949 and currently JR East) already connected the two cities, but took a considerable detour southwards to serve Isesaki City, rather than running directly between the two, thus “missing” the rural sericolture (silk-producing) areas.

To this end, planning for a direct link between the two cities began in 1919, being drawn up by a committee of students from Waseda University, headed by a certain Tajima Yutaro, the heir of a wealthy family from just outside Maebashi. These plans called for the construction of an electric light railway or an electric tramway parallel to the main road connecting Maebashi to Kiryu, with the line to eventually connect to Omahama Station on the Ashio Line (the current Watarase Keikoku Railway) on one end, and to Gunma-Soja Station on the Joetsu Main Line, located on the western outskirts of Maebashi City. The plans for the line were finalized in 1920, thanks among other things, also due to the keen interest of wealthy and influential local people, such as the then-mayor of Maebashi.

Construction works began in 1924, with the initial section between Chuo-Maebashi and Nishi-Kiryu (both located about 500m and 100m north of the two JGR stations of the respcetive towns) opening on the 10th of November 1928.

Among other things, some good long-sighted decisions were made: the line was electrified from the start using the 1500v DC “high-voltage” system, rather than the 600v DC “low voltage” that was then praxis for similar light railways and interurban tramways. To rationalize rolling stock instead, no freight cars nor electric locomotives were purchased, depsite freight transportation being the primary scope of the line: the electric railcars normally in use for passengers were used for the job – either with half the passenger compartment cordoned-off and “reserved” for freight during some runs, or more rarely, with the entire railcar being used for freight transportation if necessary. Hauling freight wagons (either as part of trough-service freight trains early on, or later maintainance trains) wasn’t deemed a problem – the electric railcars being able to easily act as locomotives, hauling around with no issue three or four wagons (wich were the maximium allowable both by the low axle-load limit allowed by the light tracks as well as the lenght limit for the short passing sidings).

In 1930, Jomo Electric Railway established a subsidiary to operate connecting bus lines, and in 1932, with the opening of the Tobu Kiryu Line, trough services between the two companies began, altough these were later curtailed in 1935, just three years later. The company was able to live trough the second world war, and the subsequent postwar years, relatively unscatched. Tobu Railway re-introduced trough-services with the Jomo Line in the early 1950s, with an express train running from Tobu-Asakusa to Chuomaebashi in the weekends, altough these were later curtailed again a decade later.

By 1968, the 40th anniversary of the company, the situation was rather dire – mass motorisation, togheter with the development of competing bus and truck services dealt a significant blow to Jomo Electric Railway’s revenues in both the passenger and freight transport areas – 1968 being the last year Jomo Electric Railway turned a small profit.

From then onward, the situation of Jomo Electric Railway became increasingly bleak with evry year. 1986 saw the end of freight services, once the raison d’etre of the railway itself.
Bus services by the company were stopped in 1995, and in 1999 all railway services became driver-only operated, as the rolling stock on the line was replaced by 3000 Series trains bought second-hand from Keio Railway.

Currently, all trains operate as local services on the original section of the line opened in 1928, between Chuo-Maebashi and Nishi-Kiryu. However, due to a considerable crunch in ridership since the mid-1990s (estimates of a staggering -40%!) due to various reason (among others, the closure of a local high school that provided a sizeable part of the line’s ridership) the company is in an extremely dire financial situation, with the only thing keeping it from closure being the sizeable life-saving subsidies that the company has been recieving from the Gunma Prefectural Government since 2007. 

Trivia #1

Depsite the “regular” passenger services being operated with the ex-Keio trains, a couple of the DeHa 100 series electric railcars dating from the line’s opening in 1928 have been retained and kept in working condition: beisdes being used as special trains during events or as charter trains for groups they’re also still being used for maintainance duties, primarily ballast replacement, coupled with two Hoki800-type hopper wagons that the company bought from JNR in the 1980s.

Trivia #2

The Jomo Electric Railway has a tightly-knit relationship with Tobu Railway – the latter being the single largest shareholder, owning about 43,31% of the company shares. The second-largest shareholder is also a railway company – the nearby Joshin Electric Railway, wich owns 9,72% of the company’s shares. The remainder are in the hands of banks and private individuals – unusually for a rural railway, no pubblic or local government entity has a share in the company.

Jomo Line