Suttsu Railway, Tochio Railway (寿都鉄道、栃尾鉄道)
This article covers the following 2 independent themes:
Suttsu Railway (寿都鉄道) in Hokkaidō
Tochio Railway ~ Echigo Kōtsū Tochio Line (栃尾鉄道→越後交通栃尾線) in Niigata Prefecture
Header Image Credit: Pinterest (obviously unrelated to the present article)
In 1968 when I was in the 5th grade, the year of the Prague Spring プラハの春, one year after our family moved from Tachikawa City to Itabashi Ward in Tōkyō, my father noticed that I had some vague interest in railways and bought me two books of railway monochrome photos, one of which was by Naotaka Hirota 広田尚敬, a Japanese Railway Photographer. Unfortunately both of them were lost long ago.
I guess the October 1968 railway schedule revision by JNR called Yon-San-Tō ヨンサントオ did partially influence my interest in railways in general on top of my mother's biased education of showing American steam locomotives before I entered elementary school.
https://tetsumin.com/196810-tohoku
2 scenes relative to the title of the present article were unforgettable in particular, and also impressive was the scene of "Limited Express Yūzuru ゆうづる from Aomori to Ueno pulled by steam locomotive C62" exactly at the time of sunrise but this is not only irrelevant but also disproportionate to the above two themes. The number of C62 might have been 49, but I'm no sure.
I remember that Suttsu Railway depicted in the book had a somewhat lonely atmosphere, even though I did not know the fate of the railway. According to Wikipedia, Suttsu Railway had been effectively out of service since about late 1967, and it is not clear when the last day of operation was. When I was in elementary school, I had no idea that Suttsu had once prospered from herring fishing. In recent years, oysters have gained a reputation as a specialty of Suttsu.
Tochio Railway, on the other hand, had a rustic atmosphere, but it was different from what I felt for Suttsu Railway. I have to add, however, that Tochio Railway was discontinued in April 1975. In 1982 when I learned my future wife had been born in Tochio City, now Nagaoka City after the merger, Niigata Prefecture, I told her that I knew there had been Tochio Railway, which surprised her. According to her, the locals called the railway "Tottetsu".
I don't have any photos of these railways that I never visited, so here're some photos from a few websites.
Suttsu Railway
ゆっくり研究所 @berizym (in X(Twitter)):
https://x.com/berizym/status/1847639338693079101
北の鉄ちゃんの部屋:
国鉄函館本線・黒松内駅に停車中の「国鉄8100形8108号機蒸気機関車」(昭和39年)
三道楽ノート:
8100型 機関車のこと
...and just recently, I found the following articles in note by 北海道しりべしの魅力発信！＃JAERO特派員
Tochio Railway
First, let me share this drawing via Wikipedia:
『栃尾鉄道沿線図絵』（栃尾鉄道、昭和2年発行）新潟県立図書館蔵
In addition, the following birds-eye view by Hatsusaburō Yoshida 吉田初三郎, a Japanese cartographer and artist (1884-1955) preserved by Echigo Kōtsū is very precious and the color scheme is intriguing:
(via Nagaoka Institute of Design Repository)
栃尾電鉄沿線景勝観光鳥瞰図』越後交通株式会社所蔵（長岡造形大学リポジトリより）
Hatsusaburō Yoshida, having created over 3,000 maps in his lifetime, is known by his bird's-eye view maps of cities and towns, known as the "Hiroshige of the Taisho Era", according to Wikipedia.
Here's a database of his artworks:
There're many photos of Tochio Railway, and the following two sites by Tsushima-Keibendo 津島軽便堂 are very informative:
越後交通 栃尾線 1 (by 津島軽便堂)
越後交通 栃尾線 2 (by 津島軽便堂)
Maps
Suttsu Town 寿都町
Tochio Area in Nagaoka City 長岡市栃尾地域
https://iju.na-nagaoka.jp/about_nagaoka/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Echigo_Kotsu_Tochio_Line_Map.png
P.S.
ttps://tochiokankou.jp/