The JNR Moka Line and the Unfinished Nagakura Line

The JNR Moka Line

My parents' hometown was along the JNR Moka Line (now the Moka Railway). As a child, I often rode the diesel car to visit there several times a year. Unlike the suburban lines near Tokyo where I lived, this single-track non-electrified line had long distances between stations, and the trains ran at a leisurely pace. I especially remember how long it took to reach Nanai Station, which I frequently used. Back then, time seemed to flow more slowly in this area. However, from the late 1960s onward, the surrounding environment changed rapidly. The nostalgic scenery of the past now exists only in my memories. Up until the mid-1960s, freight trains hauled by C12 class steam locomotives still operated, but with very few runs, so not many people were able to photograph them at the time.

The Unfinished Nagakura Line

The so-called Nagakura Line was a planned railway route by the Japanese National Railways (JNR), intended to connect Motegi Town in Tochigi Prefecture with the Nagakura area of Hitachi-Ōmiya City in Ibaraki Prefecture. In 1920 (Taisho 9), the JNR Mooka Line, the predecessor of the present-day Mooka Railway, was extended and opened as far as Motegi Station. At that time, the more remote Nakagawa and Nagakura areas suffered from extremely poor transportation access, and there was growing anticipation among local residents for the construction of a railway. In response to these local demands, the 1921 revision of the Railway Construction Act’s Appendix (Tetsudo Fusetsuho Bepyo) added two planned lines: one was a line from Mito, via Anosawa, to Tono—corresponding to today’s JR Suigun Line between Mito, Hitachi-Ōmiya, and Hitachi-Ōta; the other was a branch line diverging from Anosawa to reach Motegi. (At that time, Anosawa referred to the area around present-day Hitachi-Ōmiya.) However, following further local consultations and citizen movements, the initial plan was reviewed. In 1927 , the Appendix was amended, and the planned route was changed to run from Motegi, via Nakagawa and Nagakura, to Tono—effectively a line from Motegi through Nakagawa and Nagakura to Hitachi-Ōta. As JNR typically finalized line names only upon completion of construction, this route had no official name at that time. It later became commonly referred to as the “Nagakura Line” among railway enthusiasts and local residents. Amid continued petitions from the community, construction began in 1937 on a 6.2-kilometer section from Motegi Station, part of the total 12.2-kilometer planned section to Nagakura. Between 1938 and 1940, significant progress was made on major civil engineering works, including embankment filling, cuttings, tunnel excavation, and bridge construction, with much of the infrastructure nearing completion. However, with the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, construction of the Nagakura Line was suspended at that point. After the war, national priorities shifted toward post-war reconstruction and the development of higher-priority railway lines, and the Nagakura Line project was never resumed. Finally, in 1959, the route was officially removed from the list of planned lines during a revision of the Railway Construction Act Appendix, marking the formal cancellation of the project. Thus, the Nagakura Line passed into history as a “phantom railway”—a line that was started but never completed.