photos: Kyoto & royal train in 1915

[shiawase raichou]

 

Unique photos of Japan's Tokyo to Kyoto line in the very early 1900s, published in Dec. 2013 by the Imperial Household Agency.

One set shows the royal train at the time of Emperor Taisho's coronation in 1915. He used it to travel from Tokyo to Kyoto for the ceremony.

 

The carriage known as the Kashikodokoro Jogyosha was designed specially "to transport the Yata-no-Kagami [sacred mirror], the most sacred of the three divine symbols of the Japanese imperial throne. The images show that the car came with a bamboo blind and base to transport the mirror," reported the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

"The Kashikodokoro Jogyosha car was run only one more time: when the enthronement ceremony for Emperor Showa was held in 1928, also at the Kyoto Imperial Palace," it added.
 

 

The photos:

Imperial train in 1915 (click the blue buttons to leaf through the album)

Kyoto station in 1917 (see photographs 48-52)

Images of the then bucolic Sanyo line, including sleeping cars (undated, but the railway opened in 1900)
(see photographs 22-27)

 

 

Edited January 19, 2014 by shiawase raichou

[cteno4]

Thanks.

 

Beautiful interiors of the imperial train! That's woodwork.

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Thanks! Traditional buildings with a few american style mixed in and english and a few years later american style trains. While the trains and the cities changed a lot since then, some of the individual buildings look just like something you might see today.