The is a railway line of the

Ōigawa Railway The is a railway company in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The company is commonly known as . The company belongs to the Meitetsu Group. The first section of its lines opened in 1927. Operation The company operates preserved steam locomotives, ...

. It runs from

Senzu Station 270px, SL locomotive at Senzu Station is a railway station in the town of Kawanehon, Haibara District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, operated by the Ōigawa Railway. Lines Senzu Station is the terminal station for both the 39.5 kilometer Ōi ...

Kawanehon, Shizuoka 270px, Kawanehon Town Hall is a town located in Haibara District, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. , the town had an estimated population of 6,731 in 2895 households and a population density of 13.4 persons per km². The total area of the town was ...

, the end station of the Ōigawa Main Line, and terminates at

Ikawa Station is a train station, railway station Aoi-ku, Shizuoka, Aoi-ku, Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Shizuoka, Japan, operated by the Ōigawa Railway. At an altitude of , it is the highest railway station in Shizuoka Prefecture. Lines Ikawa Station is a terminus ...

Aoi-ku, Shizuoka is one of three wards of the city of Shizuoka in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, located in the northern part of the city. Aoi-ku borders Suruga-ku in the south and Shimizu-ku to the southeast; the west faces Shimada, Fujieda and Kawanehon a ...

. The line has 61 tunnels and 51 bridges along its 25.5 kilometer length and includes the only rack-and-pinion railway section currently operating in Japan.

History

The Ikawa line began operations on March 20, 1935, as a private line for the Ōigawa Electric Company, to carry workers and materials upstream to facilitate dam construction. The single track line was originally constructed with

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

; however, in order to have dual usage with carriages on the Senzu-Shinrin Line (now closed) a

third rail A third rail, also known as a live rail, electric rail or conductor rail, is a method of providing electric power to a railway locomotive or train, through a semi-continuous rigid conductor placed alongside or between the rails of a railway ...

was added the following year for the Japanese standard gauge (). In 1954, the line was extended under the aegis of the

Chubu Electric Power , abbreviated as Chuden in Japanese, is a Japanese electric utilities provider for the middle Chūbu region of the Honshu island of Japan. It provides electricity at 60 Hz, though an area of Nagano Prefecture uses 50 Hz. Chubu Electric ...

Company to facilitate the construction of the Ōigawa Dam. Railway operations were spun out of Chubu Electric into a separate company in 1959, with the foundation of the Ōigawa Railway Company. With the completion of the

Nagashima Dam The is a dam on the Ōi River, located in Kawanehon, Shizuoka, Kawanehon Town, Haibara District, Shizuoka, Haibara District, Shizuoka Prefecture on the island of Honshū, Japan. History The potential of the Ōi River valley for hydroelectric powe ...

, a portion of the line had to be re-routed along a 1.5 km section with a maximum

gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gr ...

of 9% (~1 in 11). This required the installation of an

Abt rack system A rack railway (also rack-and-pinion railway, cog railway, or cogwheel railway) is a steep grade railway with a toothed rack rail, usually between the running rails. The trains are fitted with one or more cog wheels or pinions that mesh with th ...

on October 2, 1990. An

automatic train stop Automatic train stop or ATS is a system on a train that automatically stops a train if certain situations occur (unresponsive train operator, earthquake, disconnected rail, train running over a stop signal, etc.) to prevent accidents. In some scena ...

system was installed at the end of March 2009. The line runs through an isolated mountain area with no cities or towns, and has a very small population density. Most of the passengers are tourists visiting one of the hot spring resorts along the line, or alpinists and hikers heading for the peaks of the Southern Alps National Park.

Former connecting lines

* Sawama station - the 762mm gauge Sen-to forest railway, consisting of a 36km 'main line', branches 6km and 4km long and a 1.4km cableway, operated between 1934 and 1968.

Stations

Image:Oku-oi Rainbow Bridge on Oigawa railway.jpg, Okuoi Rainbow Bridge Image:Ikawasen2.jpg, Mountainous terrain Image:Abt rack rail 02.jpg, Abt rack rail

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Oigawa Railway Ikawa Line Railway lines in Japan Rail transport in Shizuoka Prefecture Rack railways in Japan Railway lines opened in 1935 1067 mm gauge railways in Japan 2 ft 6 in gauge railways in Japan

History

Former connecting lines

Stations

See also

External links