Here's an interesting link: http://gizmodo.com/13-gorgeous-travel-posters-from-1930s-japan-1533432495
Several of these have various 'tetsudou kyoku' names at the bottom. I don't know what the exact organizational structure was, but these were some kind of divisions or branch offices of Japanese Government Railways, predecessor of JNR.
All horizontal writing is right-to-left. The second poster is sponsored by Governor-General of Korea Railways (not part of JGR, apparently) and the Sendai poster near the bottom shows a lot of older kanji.