is a railway line in

Wakayama Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

, Japan. It is the sole line of the Wakayama Electric Railway Co., Ltd. The 14.3 km route extends from

Wakayama Station is an interchange passenger railway station located in the city of Wakayama (city), Wakayama, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, jointly operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West) and the private railway company Wakayama Electric Railway. Li ...

in the city of

Wakayama Wakayama may refer to: *Wakayama Prefecture, a prefecture of Japan *Wakayama (city), the capital city of Wakayama Prefecture, Japan *Wakayama Station, a train station in Wakayama, Wakayama *Wakayama University , or , is a national university loc ...

to Kishi Station in neighboring Kinokawa. Including the terminals, the Kishigawa Line has 14 stations. Its

gauge Gauge ( or ) may refer to: Measurement * Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments * Gauge (firearms) * Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire ** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, es ...

is . The line is single-track and is electrified at 1,500 V DC. Prior to April 1, 2006, the line was part of the

Nankai Electric Railway is a private railway in Japan, founded in 1884. The name ''Nankai'' (which means "South Sea") comes from the company's routes along the Nankaidō, the old highway that ran south from the old capital, Kyoto, along the sea coast. Nankai predates a ...

system.

History

The Sando Light Railway Co. opened the Wakayama - Sando section between 1916 and 1917, and extended the line to Kishi in 1933. The line was electrified at 600 V DC between 1941 and 1943, and was acquired by the Nankai Electric Railway Co. in 1961. CTC signalling was commissioned in 1993, and the Wakayama Electric Railway Co. acquired the line in 2006, increasing the line voltage to 1500 V DC in 2012.

Rolling stock and service

The Kishigawa Line uses 6 sets (12 cars) of 2270 series

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

s (EMUs), originally built for Nankai and transferred to the new operator, together with the tracks and other assets of the Kishigawa Line. Some of the cars have been repainted with the design by industrial designer

Eiji Mitooka is a Japanese industrial designer, illustrator, and managing director of the industrial design company . He also works as a design consultant for Kyushu Railway Company (JR Kyushu). Biography Mitooka graduated from Okayama Technical High Sch ...

, who designed the type 9200 "MOMO" tram of

Okayama Electric Tramway The is a transportation company in Okayama City, Japan. The private company operates tram lines and bus lines. The company was founded in 1910, while their first tram line was opened in 1912. This is one of the few Japanese railway operators t ...

and various trains of

JR Kyushu The , also referred to as , is one of the seven constituent companies of Japan Railways Group (JR Group). It operates intercity rail services within Kyushu, Japan and the JR Kyushu Jet Ferry Beetle hydrofoil service across the Tsushima Strait ...

, including the

800 Series Shinkansen The is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed train type operated by Kyushu Railway Company (JR Kyushu) on the Kyushu Shinkansen high-speed rail line. Built by Hitachi, the trains were introduced on the '' Tsubame'' services from March 2004. The 800 ...

, while others are still in the Nankai livery. In the mornings and evenings, the service operates three to four times each hour; at off-peak times, two per hour is the norm. The trains are driver-only operated, and do not have conductors.

Stations

Features

In addition to the new design of the rolling stock, the operator is eager to attract passengers through unique measures such as the following: * Before trains arrive at Kishi Station or after trains leave there,

The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

song "

Strawberry Fields Forever "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented a departur ...

" is played. * Kishi Station appointed a cat named Tama as its stationmaster, complete with miniature stationmaster hat. Lah, Kyung.
Cat in hat makes $10 million for town
" ''

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

''. October 29, 2008.

References

This article incorporates material from the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia

External links