Ōigawa Railway Ikawa Line

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 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) narrow gauge; however, in order to have dual usage with carriages on the Senzu-Shinrin Line (now closed) a third rail was added the following year for the Japanese standard gauge (1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in)). In 1954, the line was extended under the aegis of the Chubu Electric Power 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, a portion of the line had to be re-routed along a 1.5 km section with a maximum gradient of 9% (~1 in 11). This required the installation of an Abt rack system on October 2, 1990. An automatic train stop 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.

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  Okuoi Rainbow Bridge
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  Mountainous terrain
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  Abt rack rail

• List of railway lines in Japan

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ikawa line.

• Official website (in Japanese)