Private railway
Voluntary sector railways (semi-public) are additionally not classified as shitetsu due to their origins as rural, money-losing JNR lines that have since been transferred to local possession, in spite of their organizational structures being corporatized.[1] They are often profitable and tend to be less expensive per passenger-kilometer than JR trains that also run less dense regional routes.Private railways corporations in Japan also run and generate profits from a variety of other businesses that depend on the traffic generated through their transit systems: hotels, department stores, supermarkets, resorts, and real estate development and leasing.Tokyo Metro is a member of Japan Private Railway Association but is under special laws and its stock is owned by the Japanese Government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (pending privatization).[3] In the United States, a private railroad is a railroad owned by a company and serves only that company, and does not hold itself out as a "common carrier" (i.e., it does not provide rail transport services for the general public).