Shimonoseki Station, Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, c. 1910. Shimonoseki Station opened on May 27, 1901 as Bakan Station on the San’yō Railway, adjacent to the Shimonoseki-Moji Railway Ferry. The station name was changed to Shimonoseki Station with the change in city name June 1, 1902. In addition to ferry service across the Straits of Shimonoseki to Kyushu, operations to Busan, Korea, establishing a link to mainland Asia, were added September 11, 1905.

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Tokaido Main Line Railway, c. 1930.

“One of the most lasting examples of the integration of railways into the daily fabric of Japanese life [in the early 1900s] is ‘The Railway Song’ (Tetsudo Shoka) written by Owada Takeki to celebrate the opening of the Tokaido Line.

“The lyrics describe a trip from Shimbashi southward along the new ling, with each station being the subject of a verse.

“… The song became immensely popular and to this day continues to be a time-honored children’s song … Such was its popularity that when the San’yo line was completed to Shimonoseki in 1901, additional verses for each station along that line were added and must have rendered the song utterly impossible to sing in its entirety.

“… From the San’yo Railway’s efforts came the first joint luxury express train in Japan, which commenced running between Tokyo and Shimonoseki in 1905 consisting of all first- and second-class carriages, sleeping cars, a dining car (worked on a concession basis by the Union of Lunch Box Salesmen), and later possessing Japan’s first observation/lounge car at the end.

“… [Later,] third-class accommodation was added and named Sakura (‘Cherry Blossom’), the Shimonoseki Express, as it was commonly known, would be rechristened the Fuji and the two would become the most celebrated of Japan’s pre-World War II expresses.”

– Early Japanese Railways, 1853-1914: Engineering Triumps that Transformed Meiji-era Japan, by Dan Free, 2008