The dreams were big, but...the Nanbu Railway was destroyed by disaster [Aomori Prefecture]

Hachinohe Station, the second busiest station in Aomori Prefecture after Aomori Station, was once served by a private railway line. Its name was the "Nanbu Railway."

The Nanbu Railway was built with grand plans, but most of those plans were never realized. Furthermore, after being damaged by the 1968 Tokachi-oki earthquake, it was unfortunately closed the following year. Let's take a look at what kind of railway it was

It's neither the "Nanbu Railway" nor the "Nanbu Longitudinal Railway"!

The first thing I want to make clear is that the railway I'm going to introduce is the " Nanbu Railway."部

There were also railways called " Nanbu Railway" (南武鉄) and "Nanbu Jukan Railway" (南南縦貫鉄) , which ran through the same Aomori Prefecture and had a similar name , but neither of them had any connection to the "Nanbu Railway."武

Nanbu Railway

The Nambu Line, which spans Kanagawa Prefecture and the Tama area of ​​Tokyo, is currently a JR East line. However, it was originally a private railway line called the "Nambu Railway" that opened in 1927

Furthermore, the JR Itsukaichi Line, which runs through the Tama region, was originally a line opened by a private railway company called the Itsukaichi Railway. The Nanbu Railway merged with this Itsukaichi Railway in 1940

However, in 1944, as the war intensified, the Nanbu Railway lines were acquired by the government for military transport purposes, and the Nanbu Railway withdrew from the railway business. Later, in 1971, the company name was changed to "Nanbu Real Estate," and it is now known as "Taiheiyo Real Estate."

Anyone familiar with the history of the Nanbu Line would likely think, upon seeing the words "Nanbu Railway," that it should be "Nanbu Railway." I thought the same thing the first time I saw it

Southern Transit Railway

In the Kamikita district of southern Aomori Prefecture, a railway line operated by a company called the "Nanbu Jukan Railway" once ran for 20.9 km from Noheji Station to Shichinohe Station (a station that no longer exists)

It should be noted that the "Nanbu region" in Aomori Prefecturedoes not mean "south." It refers to the area that was ruled by the Nanbu clan, a powerful daimyo family during the Edo period, and comprises roughly the eastern half of present-day Aomori Prefecture (parts of Iwate and Akita Prefectures are also included in the Nanbu region).

The Nanbu Jukan Railway Line opened in 1962, anticipating the transportation of iron sand for use in a steel mill. However, the steel mill project was canceled in 1965, and the company's management was poor from the start. As early as 1966, it filed for bankruptcy protection under the Corporate Reorganization Act

Although efforts were made to keep the line running as a vital mode of transportation for the local community, train operations were suspended in 1997 and officially discontinued in August 2002. In July, just before its official discontinuation, a special run was held for local residents and railway enthusiasts

The company that operated it, Nanbu Jukan Railway, changed its name to "Nanbu Jukan" in 2004 and currently handles business outsourcing, restaurant sales, and temporary staffing services

One might wonder how these businesses "traverse" the southern region, but since there are companies in Aomori Prefecture that continue to call themselves "electric railways" even after withdrawing from the railway business, it may not be a big problem. For more details, please see the article below

Tohoku Rokken Trivia Media NEFT

A railway that doesn't operate? The past and present of Towada Kanko Electric Railway [Aomori Prefecture]

https://jp.neft.asia/archives/36368

Towada Kanko Dentetsu Co., Ltd. is a company headquartered in Towada City, Aomori Prefecture. It operates bus routes in southeastern Aomori Prefecture and also runs sightseeing boats on Lake Towada. However, despite its name including "Dentetsu" (an abbreviation for electric railway), it does not actually operate a "railway." To explore the reasons for this mismatch between its name and reality, let's examine the past and present of Towada Kanko Dentetsu. The Founding and Heyday of Towada Kanko Dentetsu: Towada Kanko Dentetsu was founded in 1914, during the early Taisho era, more than 110 years ago. At the time of its founding, the company name was "Towada Kido" (Towada Railway). In 1920, it was renamed "Towada Tetsudo" (Towada Railway)...

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The fact that Shichinohe Station has been preserved, and that the small diesel railcars known as "railbuses," which have been running since the station's opening, are still in working order, has garnered a certain level of popularity among railway enthusiasts and others

In the first place, because it operated much longer than the Nanbu Railway, it can be said that it is a much more well-known railway than the Nanbu Railway. Perhaps because of this, there are occasional cases where the Nanbu Railway is confused with the Nanbu Jukan Railway. Surprisingly, even NHK (Japan's national broadcasting organization) makes this mistake

Please note that this is a different company from the Nanbu Jukan Railway, which was also located in Aomori Prefecture. The video shown was of a different line. Thank you for pointing that out

[Aomori Prefecture] Nanbu Railway | Era |From

Here is the NHK video about the Nanbu Jukan Railway

What is the Nanbu Railway? It opened as the Gonohe Electric Railway

Now, let's get to the main topic: the Nanbu Railway (not the Nanbu Railway or the Nanbu Jukan Railway)

The Nanbu Railway line opened in stages between 1929 and 1930. When it was fully completed in 1930, the section ran 12.3 km from Shirinai Station in Hachinohe City to Gonohe Station in Gonohe Town, Sannohe District . Shirinai Station is the current Hachinohe Station

This railway played an active role in transporting commuters and students, as well as in the peddling of seafood and the transportation of timber and agricultural products

When the company was founded in 1926 by a man named Zenzo Miura, its name was not Nanbu Railway but "Gonohe Electric Railway." Generally, railways that call themselves "electric railways" or "electric trains" use electric trains or electric locomotives that run on electricity.

However, the name Gonohe Electric Railway reflected the intention to electrify the line, butin realityit was a non-electrified railway without any facilities to supply electricity. It seems that trains in the early days of the line were operated by steam locomotives or gasoline-powered railcars.

Ultimately,electrification never materialized, and the company changed its name to "Gonohe Railway" in 1936, and then to "Nanbu Railway" in 1945. One of Nanbu Railway's unfulfilled plans was electrification.

Other examples of companies whose names at the time of their founding included phrases like "electric railway," but ultimately failed to achieve electrification, include the Mito Electric Railway in Ibaraki Prefecture, the Zenkoji Hakuba Electric Railway in Nagano Prefecture, and the Awa Electric Railway in Tokushima Prefecture

As a complete digression, although the Zenkoji Hakuba Electric Railway only operated as a railway for a mere seven years starting in 1936,the company continued to operate a freight trucking business under the same name and still exists today.
Some sections of the lines established by the Awa Electric Railway still exist today as parts of the JR Kotoku Line and the Naruto Line.

Plan to extend the line to Tanesashi Coast in Akita Prefecture

The Nanbu Railway linewas not originally planned to end at Gonohe Station from Shirinai Station. There was a plan to extend the line from Gonohe Station to Kemanai Station, which corresponds to the current Towada-Minami Station on the Hanawa Line in Akita Prefecture. There was also a plan to extend the line from Shirinai Station to Hachinohe Station (which was the Hachinohe Station at the time), which corresponds to the current Hon-Hachinohe Station on the Hachinohe Line.

Furthermore, there were apparently plans to extend the line from Hachinohe to the Tanesashi Coast on the Pacific coast, as well as to Sannohe Town, Towada City, and Tohoku Town. These plans were truly befitting of the name "Nanbu" Railway, which was renamed in 1945

However, the extension to Kemanai never materialized due to the wartime regime. Similarly, the extension to Tanesashi,despite surveying and land acquisition after the war, also never materialized. This was likely due to factors such as the advent of the automobile and the rise of buses, which were more convenient for sightseeing and therefore more popular with tourists. Had the extensions been realized, the Nanbu Railway's role as public transportation in Hachinohe City, and its subsequent fate, might have been significantly different…

The line was decommissioned after being damaged by the Tokachi offshore earthquake

According to the October 1967 timetable, the Nanbu Railway had 12 round trips of passenger trains per day. All trains ran the entire distance from Shirinai Station to Gonohe Station, covering 12.3 km in 27 to 41 minutes. The average speed (including stopping time) was less than 30 km/h even for the fastest trains, suggesting it was a rather peaceful railway

Twelve round trips a day is not an extremely small number for a local line. Although the line was operating at a loss, it had over 2,000 passengers per day, and if nothing had happened, it would likely have survived for the time being. However, the following year, 1968, the Nanbu Railway was hit by a truly devastating shock

On May 16, 1968, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum seismic intensity of 5 (according to the standards at the time) occurred near the boundary between the Kuril Trench and the Japan Trench off the eastern coast of Aomori Prefecture, and was named the " Tokachi Offshore Earthquake ."

Tokachi is a place name in Hokkaido, but the majority of the damage, including 52 fatalities and the complete or partial destruction of buildings, was concentrated in Aomori Prefecture. In reality, the earthquake caused significant damage, especially in the southern part of Aomori Prefecture. Although the epicenter was off the coast of Sanriku, it was initially mistakenly identified as being off the coast of Tokachi, which seems to have led to this inaccurate name

The earthquake damaged 37 sections of the Nanbu Railway line, rendering it impassable. Restoration would require enormous costs and effort, and it was deemed impossible. As a result, the line was officially discontinued at the end of March 1969

Incidentally, in 1968, the Bandai Express Railway in Fukushima Prefecture suspended operations due to financial collapse and was officially abolished the following year, 1969. Two railways in the Tohoku region, like the Nanbu Railway, were suspended or abolished in the same year.
Moreover, the original name of the Nanbu Railway, the Gonohe Electric Railway, was a name that did not reflect its actual operation, and the Bandai Express Railway,despite its name, was a railway that did not run electric trains. This point is also a strange coincidence.
For more information on the Bandai Express Railway, please see this article.

Tohoku Rokken Trivia Media NEFT

Neither an express train nor an electric railway!? Bandai Express Electric Railway [Fukushima Prefecture]

https://jp.neft.asia/archives/52200

There was a railway company and railway line called Bandai Kyuko Dentetsu (Bandai Express Railway). While the name might be reminiscent of a certain company involved in the toy business, it's not a fictional railway appearing in toys. It was a real railway that existed until 1969 in Inawashiro-machi, Yama-gun, Fukushima Prefecture. And a key characteristic is that, despite its name, it wasn't an "express" or "electric railway." It opened as a line to transport sulfur ore. In the central part of Inawashiro-machi, Fukushima Prefecture, there was once a mine where sulfur ore was extracted. The Numajiri Mine was where the Adatara...

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The Nanbu Railway after its closure

With the railway line discontinued, the Nanbu Railway company became a company specializing solely in its original bus business, and changed its nameNanbu Bus. However, the bus stop that was located in front of the head office and Gonohe Station still retains the name "Gonohe Station" to this day.

Most of the abandoned railway line has been converted into roads and walking paths, and the former head office and warehouses located in front of Gonohe Station were demolished in 2009. There are now few traces left to indicate that a railway once ran there

The Nanbu Bus company itself transferred its bus operations to Iwate Kenpoku Jidosha in 2016, subsequently went bankrupt, and no longer exists. However, the buses operated by the Nanbu branch of Iwate Kenpoku Jidosha, which acquired the business, are still called Nanbu Bus

When the Nanbu Railway line was discontinued, all of its rolling stock was disposed of, and not a single vehicle was preserved. It seemed as though all traces of the Nanbu Railway were about to disappear, but in 2022, a single vehicle, known as the "miracle vehicle," arrived in Gonohe Town

The miraculous train "DC351" returns home

The DC351 diesel locomotive , which was used by the Nanbu Railway , had been preserved in a distant location for certain reasons, but in April 2022, it made its "homecoming" after a remarkable 55 years

The DC351 is a diesel locomotive manufactured in 1956 that runs on light oil. It was introduced to cope with the increased transportation of timber, the main cargo carried by the Nanbu Railway. Its advantage was that it required less effort to operate than the steam locomotives that had been used previously, and it contributed to the modernization of the Nanbu Railway

However, the Nanbu Railway's freight transport seems to have faced difficult circumstances, such as a decline in freight volume due to the spread of truck transport. As a result, DC351 was transferred to a company called Nippon Yakin Kogyo in Kyoto Prefecture, and was used to haul freight cars and passenger cars on the Kaya Railway, a private railway line that ran through a town in Yosa District, Kyoto Prefecture (present-day Yosano Town)

It was 1967, the year before the Tokachi-oki earthquake. Miraculously, DC351 escaped damage. As a result of all the remaining rolling stock on the Nanbu Railway being disposed of after the line was discontinued, DC351 is said to be the only surviving rolling stock that was ever in service with the Nanbu Railway

The Kaya Railway, which was the second place in which DC351 was active, was also abolished in 1985, but after the abolition, DC351 was preserved and displayed for many years at the Kaya SL Square

The Kaya SL Plaza also closed at the end of March 2020, so it became necessary to find a new place for the 27 vehicles that were on display. The town of Gonohe learned of this through a letter from a railway enthusiast and immediately made an offer to Nippon Yakin Kogyo, with the mayor himself writing a letter, to take possession of the DC351, and the transfer was approved free of charge

The transfer itself is free, but the transportation and construction of the new tracks will cost approximately 12 million yen. Part of the cost will be covered by crowdfunding, and approximately 5.8 million yen has been raised from 314 people, including railway enthusiasts from all over the country

For the relocation, the statue was first transported by ferry from Maizuru Port in Kyoto Prefecture to Otaru Port in Hokkaido, then by land within Hokkaido to Tomakomai Port. After that, it was transported by ferry again to Hachinohe Port. Finally, it was transported by land, and on the morning of April 16, 2022, the relocation to the Gonohe Local History Museum in Gonohe Town was successfully completed

After a long journey of approximately 1,800 km, the last remaining train car of the Nanbu Railway returned to Gonohe Town after 55 years. Gonohe Town plans to use DC351 to convey the town's history and the memory of the Tokachi-oki earthquake

Conclusion

In recent years, several railway lines, like the Nanbu Railway, have been discontinued or have been scheduled for closure due to damage from natural disasters, at least in the Tohoku region alone. On the other hand, it is also true that some lines, such as the JR Tadami Line in Fukushima Prefecture and the Sanriku Railway Rias Line in Iwate Prefecture, have recovered despite suffering extensive damage

Tohoku Rokken Trivia Media NEFT

Tadami Line: Japan's most scenic local train line (Fukushima Prefecture)

https://jp.neft.asia/archives/28913

There are local lines that are praised with expressions such as "spectacular local lines," "railroad lines with beautiful autumn foliage," and "local lines with beautiful snowscapes." This article introduces the Tadami Line, a JR East line that spans the Aizu region of Fukushima Prefecture and the Uonuma region of Niigata Prefecture. This article introduces the line's attractions, such as its scenery and nearby spots, as well as a brief history of the line. The Tadami Line, ranked number one among local lines with spectacular views, is a 135.2-kilometer JR East line that runs from Aizuwakamatsu Station in Aizuwakamatsu City, Fukushima Prefecture, to Koide Station in Uonuma City, Niigata Prefecture. Aizuwakamatsu Station is served by a train line that connects Koriyama Station on the Tohoku Shinkansen line to Ban'etsu West...

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Tohoku Rokken Trivia Media NEFT

Sanriku Railway, which overcame the crisis and continues to operate today [Iwate Prefecture]

https://jp.neft.asia/archives/37672

There is a railway line running along the Pacific coast of Iwate Prefecture. It's called the "Rias Line" of the "Sanriku Railway." The Sanriku Railway, the last railway to open along the Sanriku coast, rose again after suffering damage from a major disaster, and today it continues to run, carrying the hopes and dreams of locals and tourists alike. What is the Sanriku Railway Rias Line? The "Sanriku Railway" is a third-sector company established with investment from public institutions such as Iwate Prefecture and Miyako City, as well as private companies such as Iwate Bank. It is commonly known as "Santetsu." It runs from Sakari Station in Ofunato City, Iwate Prefecture, through Kamaishi Station in Kamaishi City, and Miyako Station in Miyako City...

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However, the Tadami Line was restored on the condition that Fukushima Prefecture would bear two-thirds of the restoration costs and retain ownership of the tracks, other facilities, and land. The Sanriku Railway is athird-sector railway funded by Iwate Prefecture and the municipalities along the line, andsome sections were restored on the condition that the prefecture took over the management of sections that were originally JR lines.that restoring damaged railways requires local communities to bear a significant burden of restoration costs and to be prepared to bear the costs of maintenance in the future.

How can we protect local transportation from major disasters that could strike at any time? What should we do if we are affected? These are challenges that railway companies alone cannot solve, and this is something that local lines in rural areas are constantly grappling with

Yuto Ono

A former railway engineer and current freelance writer who has loved trains since childhood, his dream is to make train travel his career