Atami Railway
| Atami Railway | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Steam locomotive on the Atami Railway (around 1920)
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| Route length: | 25.3 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 610 mm / 762 mm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Society: | Zusō Jinsha Tetsudō Atami Tetsudō |
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The Atami Railway ( Japanese 熱 海 鉄 道 , Atami Tetsudō ) was an overland tram on the Japanese island of Honshū . Along Sagami Bay , it linked Odawara in Kanagawa Prefecture with Atami in Shizuoka Prefecture . It was opened as a hand-operated train in 1895 and converted into a steam tram in 1907 . In 1923 operations had to be stopped after the Great Kanto earthquake .
history
Atami had been famous for its hot springs for centuries , but it was not on Tōkaidō , Japan's most important postal and trade route. The Tōkaidō main line , built in the 1870s and 1880s, did not run through the city, unlike today, but made a major detour around the Hakone volcanic massif (this route corresponds to today's Gotemba line ). The nearest train station, Kōzu, was around 30 km away. From 1888 there was a horse-drawn railway line from Kōzu to Odawara , built by a predecessor company of today's Hakone Tozan Tetsudō .
It was initially planned to continue this horse-drawn tram (gauge 1372 mm) from Odawara to Atami, but not enough funds were raised. The entrepreneur Amenomiya Keijirō suggested building a much cheaper hand - operated train with a track width of two feet (610 mm) instead . The then founded railway company Zusō Jinsha Tetsudō ( 豆 相 人 車 鉄 道 ) received the building permit in November 1890. The opening of the first section of 10.4 km in length between Atami and Yoshihama took place on July 13, 1895. The 14.4 km long section from Yoshihama to Odawara was in operation from March 12, 1896. Finally, on June 20, 1900, an extension of 0.5 km was added in Odawara to create a connection to the now electrified Odawara tram .
The capacity of the hand-operated train was limited. According to the February 1900 timetable, it ran six times a day, with a journey taking up to three hours and 40 minutes. Although the passengers helped push the wagons on certain inclines, the fares were comparatively high. The Zusō Jinsha Tetsudō was renamed to Atami Tetsudō ( 熱 海 鉄 道 ) in 1906 and began converting the line into a more powerful steam tram in the following year. On July 28, 1908, the company was bought by Dai Nippon Kidō ( 大 日本 軌道 ), a tram company founded by Amenomiya. Two weeks later, on August 11, 1908, the renovation was completed; this also included gauging to two and a half feet (762 mm).
In 1918, the construction of a largely parallel shortcut of the Tōkaidō main line from Kōzu via Odawara and Atami to Numazu began . The Dai Nippon Kidō Group was aware that the Atami Railway would soon no longer be competitive and therefore sold it to the state on July 1, 1920. The number of passengers rose temporarily, which was mainly due to the fact that the steam tram carried numerous workers to the construction site of the Tanna tunnel . On December 11, 1922, the section Odawara – Manazuru was closed because it had been replaced by a section of the Tōkaidō main line. The remaining section of Manazuru – Atami suffered severe damage in the Great Kantō earthquake on September 1, 1923 and was not rebuilt, especially since the closure was planned anyway.
A locomotive that is set up on the square in front of Atami station is reminiscent of the steam tram .
Web links
- Information on the Odawara City website (Japanese)
- Maps and Photos (Japanese)
literature
- Hiroshi Takayama: 豆 相 人 車 鉄 道 ・ 熱 海 鉄 道 の 成立 と 展開 過程 . In: Tetsudō shiryō . tape 109 . Tetsudō shishiryō hozon-kai, Osaka 2004, p. 1-42 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 登山 電車 へ の 道. Hakone Tozan Tetsudō , 2018, accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 日本 鉄 道 史 下 編. National Library of Parliament , 1921, accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 国民 必 携 年 中 宝 鑑. National Parliamentary Library , 1900, accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 日本 鉄 道 史 下 編. National Library of Parliament , 1921, accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 軌道 特許 権 譲 渡. In: Official Gazette. National Parliamentary Library , July 7, 1920; accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).
- ↑ 鉄 道 省 年報. 大 正 12 年度. (Annual report of the Ministry of Railways 1923). National Parliamentary Library , 1924, accessed January 4, 2019 (Japanese).