Eizan Main Line

The line opened on 27 September 1925, when Kyoto Dentō (the Kyoto Electric Light Company) brought the section between Demachiyanagi and Yase — the present Yase-Hieizanguchi — into service. It was placed under the company’s Eizan Electric Railway Division (叡山電気鉄道部), the organisation from which the later “Eiden” name derives. At its opening the line used an overhead double-pole current-collection system, in which two trolley poles drew current from a pair of overhead wires; this was changed to a conventional single-wire overhead system in February 1930.

In December 1928 a subsidiary, the Kurama Electric Railway, opened the first portion of what is now the Kurama Line, branching off at Yamabana — today’s Takaragaike — which thereby became a junction. The Kurama Electric Railway was completed in December 1929, and through services began running between Demachiyanagi, Yamabana and Kurama; that through-running arrangement with the Kurama Line has continued ever since. The line’s early decades were not without disruption: on 29 June 1935 the Kamo River flood put the whole line out of service, with partial operation between Demachiyanagi and Miyakehachiman restored the following morning.

On 2 March 1942 the line was transferred to the Keifuku Electric Railroad, which would operate it for the next four decades. The Second World War left its mark on the route: in May 1944 the Yamabana–Yase section was singled as a “non-essential, non-urgent line” (不要不急線) and its surplus track lifted for war materials, before being re-doubled on 1 July 1951. In July 1943 the Higashiyama Line of the Kyoto City Tram had been extended to cross the line on the level, and from December 1949 the city tram itself ran through onto the line between Mototanaka and Yamabana — a service operated only on race days to carry spectators to the municipal velodrome at Takaragaike. That through-running ended on 1 September 1955.

By the late 1970s the line had been cut off from the rest of the rail network: when the Kyoto City Tram was abolished on 1 October 1978, its crossings became ordinary road crossings and the line lost its track connection to any other railway. A few weeks later, on 19 October 1978, the line gave up the last trolley-pole current collection in Japan, all its cars converting to pantographs. On 1 April 1986 operation passed to the newly established Eizan Electric Railway, which had been set up in 1985 by Keifuku to address the heavy deficit of the isolated Eiden network. The new operator installed automatic train stop (ATS) equipment from December 1987 and began one-man operation at the same time.

The line’s fortunes turned with the opening of the Keihan Ōtō Line on 5 October 1989, which built a new Keihan station at Demachiyanagi and once again connected the Eizan lines to a wider rail network; the resulting traffic substantially reduced Eiden’s deficit. A major timetable expansion followed on 23 March 1994, adding dozens of weekday and holiday services. The line’s northern terminus, opened as Yase, had been renamed Yaseyūen in 1965 after the amusement park there; following the park’s closure in 2001 the station was renamed again, to Yase-Hieizanguchi, on 10 March 2002.

In 2002 the Eizan Electric Railway became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Keihan Electric Railway, when all of Keifuku’s shares in the company were transferred to Keihan. The line has since leaned into its sightseeing role: the distinctively styled observation train “Hiei” entered service on 21 March 2018, and on 1 April 2023 Chayama Station was renamed Chayama-Kyōto-Geijutsudaigaku to mark the nearby art university. Today the standard-gauge, 600 V Eizan Main Line carries mostly one-man trains at frequent intervals — many of them through-running over the Kurama Line — combining everyday commuter service through northern Sakyō-ku with seasonal sightseeing traffic toward Mount Hiei.

• 19228 November: a railway licence is granted for the line between Tanaka-Kamiyanagichō (Kyoto) and Shugakuin.
• 192527 September: Kyoto Dentō opens the Demachiyanagi–Yase (present Yase-Hieizanguchi) line; current collection is by overhead double pole.
• 19281 December: the subsidiary Kurama Electric Railway opens the Yamabana (present Takaragaike)–Ichihara section of the present Kurama Line; Yamabana becomes a junction.
• 192920 December: the Kurama Electric Railway is completed and through-running begins between Demachiyanagi, Yamabana and Kurama.
• 1930February: the current-collection system is changed from overhead double-wire to overhead single-wire.
• 193529 June: the Kamo River flood suspends the whole line; partial service between Demachiyanagi and Miyakehachiman resumes the next morning.
• 19422 March: the line is transferred to the Keifuku Electric Railroad.
• 19441 May: the Yamabana–Yase section is singled as a non-essential wartime line and its materials requisitioned.
• 19511 July: the Yamabana–Yase section is re-doubled.
• 195410 June: Yamabana Station is renamed Takaragaike.
• 19551 September: through-running of Kyoto City Tram services onto the line, run since December 1949 for the Takaragaike velodrome, ends.
• 19651 August: Yase Station is renamed Yaseyūen, after the amusement park there.
• 19781 October: the Kyoto City Tram is abolished, severing the line’s rail connection to other lines; on 19 October the last trolley-pole current collection in Japan is abolished and all cars are converted to pantographs.
• 19861 April: operation of the line is transferred to the Eizan Electric Railway (founded by Keifuku in 1985).
• 198710 December: automatic train stop (ATS) equipment is installed on the line and one-man operation begins.
• 19895 October: the Keihan Ōtō Line opens with a new Keihan Demachiyanagi Station, reconnecting the line to the wider rail network.
• 200210 March: Yaseyūen Station is renamed Yase-Hieizanguchi, following the 2001 closure of the Mori-no-Yūenchi amusement park.
• 201821 March: the sightseeing train “Hiei” enters service.
• 20231 April: Chayama Station is renamed Chayama-Kyōto-Geijutsudaigaku.