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Japan Railways, more commonly called '''JR''', is a collective term for the privatized successors to the former Japanese National Railways , formed when JNR was divided into seven parts on April 1 , 1987 . These companies now collectively form the '''Japan Rail Group''' {Link without Title} . In Japan, a strong distinction is still made between JR and "genuine" private railways. The seven JR companies are:
In addition, there is JR Soken (JR総研), a research institution. The , West Japan , and Central Japan railway companies, which operate in Honshu , and the Kyushu , Shikoku , and Hokkaido railroad companies, which operate on the islands for which the companies were named. In addition, the East Japan Railway Company, since the opening of the Seikan Tunnel between Honshu and Hokkaido in 1988, also provides express service to Sapporo . Similarly, the Central Japan Railway Company started serving Shikoku after the 1990 completion of the Seto-Ohashi bridges, a system of seven bridges linking Honshu and Shikoku. The six companies had 18,800 kilometers of routes (mostly 1.1-meter track) in use in the late 1980s. About 25 % of the routes were in double-track and multitrack sections, and the rest were single-track. In 1988 about 51 % of the six companies' 1,000 locomotives were Diesel , and the rest were electric. Another company, Japan Freight Railway Company , ownes its locomotives (295 diesel and 569 electric locomotives in 1988), Rolling Stock , and stations but hires track from the six passenger companies. It runs fewer trains on less track than Japanese National Railways freight service did before its demise but at increased revenues and higher Productivity . The eighth company, the Shinkansen Property Corporation , leases Shinkansen (dubbed "bullet" train in english) railroad facilities--including 2,100 kilometers of 1.4-meter gauge highspeed track--to the passenger companies on Honshu. Some of the Shinkansen electric-powered trains operate at speeds up to 240 kilometers per hour. Another nearly 3,400 kilometers of routes, mostly 1.1-meter gauge, are operated by major private railroads and by what are known in Japan as third-sector railroads--new companies, financed with private and local government funds--which absorbed some of Japanese National Railways' rural lines. There were twenty-seven private and third-sector companies in 1989. What remained of the debt-ridden Japanese National Railways after its 1987 breakup was named the railroads for the first time since 1974. Demand for rail transport was improved, although it still accounted for only 28 % of passenger transportation and only 5 % of cargo transportation in 1990. Rail passenger transportation was superior to automobiles in terms of Energy Efficiency and of speed in longdistance transportation. SEE ALSO
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