Kōbe Rapid Transit Railway

Kobe Rapid Transit Railway
Legend
Hankyu Sannomiya
Motomachi
Hanakuma
Nishi-Motomachi
Kōsoku Kōbe
Shinkaichi
Minatogawa
Daikai
Kōsoku Nagata
Nishidai

Kōbe Rapid Transit Railway Company, Limited (神戸高速鉄道株式会社 Kōbe kōsoku-tetsudō) is a special railway company in central Kobe, Japan.

Contents

Lines

Kobe Rapid Railway has three lines.

The Tozai Line and the Namboku Line are the original operation of the railway company while the Hokushin Line is a recent addition to its business. As for all lines, the company is the Category-3 Operator (第三種鉄道事業者 dai-sanshu-tetsudō-jigyōsha?) under the 1986 Railway Business Act of Japan.

Tozai Line and Namboku Line

On these lines, the company does not run its own services but provides the necessary infrastructure for four private railway lines (Hankyu Kobe Line (Hankyu), Hanshin Main Line (Hanshin), Shintetsu Arima Line (Shintetsu) and Sanyo Electric Railway Main Line (Sanyo) to be able to run trains through Kobe.

The company operated and administrated the stations on the Tozai Line and the Namboku Line until September 2010 (except for Sannomiya Station operated by Hankyu, Motomachi Station operated by Hanshin, Nishidai Station operated by Sanyo and Minatogawa Station operated by Shintetsu), then the operation of the stations on the Tozai Line were transferred to Hanshin and Hankyu, and Shinkaichi Station on the Namboku Line to Shintetsu.

Hokushin Line

Formerly the Hokushin Line was owned by the operator, Hokushin Kyuko Electric Railway. When Hokushin Kyuko suffered financial difficulties in 2002, Kobe Rapid Railway purchased the assets of the railway trackage from Hokushin Kyuko. Since then, Kobe Rapid Railway owns the Hokushin Line.

Unlike the Tozai Line and the Namboku Line stations, the stations of the Hokushin Line are operated and administrated by Hokushin Kyuko (Tanigami Station) and Kobe Municipal Subway (Shin-Kobe Station).

External links