The history of rail transport in Japan began in the late Edo period. There have been four main stages: 1. * Stage 1, from 1872, the first line, from Tokyo to Yokohama, to the end of the Russo-Japanese war; 2. * Stage 2, from nationalization in 1906-07 to the end of World War II; 3. * Stage 3, from the postwar creation of Japanese National Railways to 1987; 4. * Stage 4, from privatization to the present, with JNR split between six new railway operators for passengers and one for freight.