The was a privately owned

monorail A monorail (from "mono", meaning "one", and " rail") is a railway in which the track consists of a single rail or a beam. Colloquially, the term "monorail" is often used to describe any form of elevated rail or people mover. More accurat ...

system connecting

Mukōgaoka-Yūen Station is a passenger railway station located in the Noborito neighborhood of Tama-ku, Kawasaki, Tama-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Kanagawa, Japan and operated by the private railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway. Lines M ...

to the main gate of the Mukōgaoka Yūen amusement park.

History

Odakyu , commonly known as Odakyū, is a major railway company based in Tokyo, Japan, best known for its '' Romancecar'' series of limited express trains from Tokyo to Odawara, Enoshima, Tama New Town, and Hakone. The Odakyu Electric Railway Company ...

opened both the

Odakyū Odawara Line The is the main line of Japanese private railway operator Odakyu Electric Railway. It extends 82.5 km from Shinjuku in central Tokyo through the southwest suburbs to the city of Odawara, the gateway to Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture. It is ...

electric railway from

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

Odawara is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 188,482 and a population density of 1,700 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Geography Odawara lies in the Ashigara Plains, in the far western por ...

and the Mukōgaoka Yūen amusement park in 1927. Initially, the park was connected to the nearest station by a miniature railway, but plans to build a major road across the line led Odakyu to replace it with a monorail.Demery, Leroy W.
Monorails in Japan
'', p.25. Carquinez Associates, 2005. Built for ¥200 million ($550,000 in 1966 dollars), the short 1.1-km line was the first monorail built by the Nihon-Lockheed Monorail Company, a joint venture of aerospace company Lockheed with

Kawasaki Aerospace Company is the aerospace division of Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI). It produces aircraft, space systems, simulators, jet engines, missiles, and electronic equipment. During the 1930s and 1940s, Kawasaki Aircraft Industries developed numerous types o ...

. A trip lasted only three minutes, with the line's single two-car train running every 15 minutes during park opening hours. At ¥100/160 one-way/return, the fare was cheaper than the regular city bus (¥200), and was thus used by some local residents as well. By the end of the 1990s, the line was serving only on average 900 passengers a day. Cracks were discovered in the vehicle in February 2000, leading Odakyu to suspend operations and eventually decide that the estimated ¥380 million replacement cost could not be justified. The amusement park closed shortly afterwards in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukogaoka-Yuen Monorail Monorails in Japan Railway lines opened in 1966 Railway lines closed in 2001 Defunct monorails 1966 establishments in Japan 2001 disestablishments in Japan