About East Japan Railway Company

East Japan Railway Company, or JR East, is the largest railway operator in Japan. It was originally established when the government-owned nationwide railway operator underwent a six-way territorial split in 1987, though it wasn't fully privatized until 2002. It runs both long distance bullet trains, known as Shinkansen, and shorter municipal train routes around and from Tokyo. Its 7,400 kilometers of rail track covers half of Japan's population and a third of the country's land area. Two thirds of revenue is from transportation, with most of the rest from retail operations and real estate investments.