Niitsu Works

Niitsu Works (Japanese: 新津事業所 Niitsu Jigyōsho) is a rolling stock manufacturing facility owned by J-TREC, in turn under the jurisdiction of the East Japan Railway Company (JR East). Originally mainly a maintenance facility, the facility was later converted to exclusively a manufacturing facility.

History[]

Niitsu Works was opened on 16 January 1941 during the era of the Japanese Government Railways; the facility was mainly used as a repair and maintenance facility but would also be occasionally used to manufacture rolling stock such as freight cars. Ownership of Niitsu Works would pass to the Japanese National Railways following World War II, and then JR East following JNR's privatization and division. The first train that Niitsu Works would manufacture was the 107 series, with the project being done to improve the skills of the employees at the plant.

In 1994, Niitsu Works was converted exclusively into a rolling stock manufacturing facility; this was done with the assistance of Tokyu Car Corporation and Mitsui E&S, with employees sent to JR East's Ōi, Ōmiya and Ōfuna Works and Mitsui E&S to pick up manufacturing processes. It would initially produce cars originally produced by Tokyu Car; to strengthen its technical capabilities, Niitsu Works would work on the design process for railcars starting from the 209-950 series cars later on. The first trainset produced by Niitsu Works largely in its entirety was 209 series set Ura36, completed on 7 April 1995 (sans SaHa 208-1 which was produced at Tokyu Car).

The facility itself is designed to produce city commuter trainsets mainly for use in the Tokyo region, although it has produced trains for other private railways; the facility is not designed to manufacture Shinkansen or limited express trainsets although the facility was planned to at some point be able to manufacture the latter. Initially producing one car every three days, this was later increased to one car per day in 2001, with an average rate of 250 cars yearly and 262 at maximum. On 18 December 2013, JR East passed a resolution passing its rolling stock manufacturing business to subsidiary company J-TREC to centralize all rolling stock manufacturing; due to this Niitsu Works came under the jurisdiction of J-TREC and remains as such today.

The 5000th car produced at the facility was KuHa E235-16 (set Tō16) on 14 February 2018.

Factories operated by the JR Group
JR Central	Hamamatsu • Nagoya • Shizuoka
JR West	Gōto • Hiroshima • Suita
JR East	Kōriyama • Morioka • Nagano • Ōfuna • Ōmiya
JR Kyushu	Kagoshima • Kokura
JR Hokkaido	Kushiro • Naebo
JR Shikoku	Tadotsu
Defunct/Former	Hatabu • Hyōgo • Kobe • Mattō • Niitsu • Ōi • Shimbashi • Takatori • Toyokawa • Tsuchizaki • Yokkaichi