Suttsu Tetsudo
| Suttsu Tetsudo | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | 16.5 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1067 mm ( cape track ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Maximum slope : | 20 ‰ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Minimum radius : | 200 m | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dual track : | No | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Suttsu Tetsudō ( Japanese 寿 都 鉄 道 ) was the railway line of the Japanese railway company of the same name . It was located in the southwest of the island of Hokkaidō and was in operation from 1920 to 1968.
description
The railway line of the Suttsu Tetsudō was Cape gauge , single-track and not electrified. It branched off the Hakodate Main Line at Kuromatsunai Station and headed north to Suttsu Bay on the coast of the Sea of Japan . After a distance of 16.5 km, it ended at Suttsu Station.
history
Suttsu was an important center of the herring fishery and from 1918 it was connected to Kuromatsunai further inland by a horse-drawn bus . Soon thereafter there was a desire to replace the inadequate horse-drawn bus with a railway line so that herrings and ores could also be transported. Since it was not possible to get a resolution from parliament for the construction of a state railway line at short notice, local entrepreneurs founded a private railway company on August 20, 1918 with a capital of 500,000 yen . The construction of the line began in July 1919. Due to the effects of the First World War , the building material had become considerably more expensive and the cost rose to almost 900,000 yen. The shortfall had to be made up with loans. The opening was on October 24, 1920.
The loan was paid off after 13 years. After the end of the Pacific War , the company's financial situation worsened when prices and wage costs rose sharply due to inflation, but freight tariffs could not be adjusted for a long time due to a lack of approval from the price control authorities. In 1952, the Suttsu Tetsudō procured diesel locomotives as a cost-cutting measure , which were much more economical to operate. However, the closure of mines, the decline of the herring fishery, increasing truck traffic and competing bus routes made more and more problems for the company. In the 1950s, the Japanese State Railways planned an alternative route along the coast to the Hakodate Main Line , which would have included parts of the Suttsu Line and the Iwanai Line . Due to the flatter incline, this new line would have been particularly advantageous for freight traffic. Ultimately, this project did not materialize.
The company tried to diversify with taxis, buses and gravel mining . Heavy rains and heavy floods washed away the track bed in several places in the summer of 1968, so that operations had to be stopped on August 14th. Then the company Hokkaidō Chūō Bus set up a rail replacement service . The official closure of the railway line and the definitive conversion into a bus line took place on May 11, 1972. Finally, the general meeting of Suttsu Tetsudō decided on July 20, 1987 to dissolve itself.
List of train stations
| Surname | km | Connecting lines | location | place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kuromatsunai ( 黒 松 内 ) | 0.0 | Hakodate main line | Coord. | Kuromatsunai |
| Nakanogawa ( 中 の 川 ) | 3.9 | Coord. | ||
| Yubetsu ( 湯 別 ) | 9.9 | Coord. | Suttsu | |
| Tarukishi ( 樽 岸 ) | 13.3 | Coord. | ||
| Suttsu ( 寿 都 ) | 16.5 | Coord. |
Web links
- Suttsu Line Information with Photo Galleries (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ↑ 日本 全国 諸 会 社 役 員 録. 第 27 回. Parliament of Japan Digital Library, 1918, accessed August 13, 2017 (Japanese).
- ↑ 地方 鉄 道 運輸 開始. Japanese Official Gazette, October 28, 1920, accessed August 13, 2017 (Japanese).
- ↑ Yoshikazu Kusamachi (Ed.): 全国 未成 線 ガ イ ド 知 ら れ ざ る 鉄 道路 線 (Guide to Unknown Railways Across Japan) . Takarajimasha, Chiyoda 2016, ISBN 978-4-8002-4841-1 , pp. 88-89 .
Map with all coordinates: