Hokushin Line

The line owes its existence to chronic overcrowding on the Kobe Electric Railway Arima Line. Large-scale housing development in Kobe's northern “Hokushin” district, much of it by the railway's own developers, had pushed the Arima Line to bursting point by the late 1970s; in 1983, while the district was still only partly built up, its peak-hour congestion reached 201 percent, and forecasts warned of far worse to come. A second bypass route between the northern suburbs and the city centre was needed, and planning bodies recommended that such a line be built — but driving a record-length tunnel through the Rokkō range was a cost far beyond what Kobe Electric Railway, then a smaller operator already burdened with other projects, could bear alone.

To solve this, Kobe Electric Railway turned to its business partner Hankyu and, together with Kobe financial interests, set up a separate company to build and open the line, intending to absorb it once it was on a stable footing. The Hokushin Kyuko Railway (北神急行電鉄) was incorporated on 29 October 1979, with Kobe Electric Railway as its largest shareholder; the municipalities themselves did not invest. Full-scale civil works on the Tanigami–Shin-Kobe line began on 16 November 1981. The centrepiece was the 7,276-metre Hokushin Tunnel, then the longest tunnel on any private railway in Japan, bored through hard Rokkō granite shot through with fracture zones; because it passed directly beneath the San'yō Shinkansen, the contractors were held to an exacting limit on how far the Shinkansen's Shin-Kobe Station could be allowed to settle. The tunnel was holed through on 9 August 1984.

The Hokushin Line opened on 2 April 1988 between Shin-Kobe and Tanigami, about a year later than first planned, with through running onto the Kobe Municipal Subway's Seishin–Yamate Line from the first day. The project had proved punishing: the original budget of about 53.3 billion yen had swelled to roughly 71.0 billion yen by the time services began, with the line built through the Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation and the tunnel funded jointly by Hankyu and that corporation rather than by the city. From the outset the line was worked by one-man operation with no conductor, and crews changed over at Shin-Kobe.

When the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck on 17 January 1995, the Hokushin Line came through with no major damage and resumed running the very next day; with many other railways around Kobe still severed, it served for a time as the only transport link delivering passengers directly from Osaka and elsewhere into the heart of the city. Financially, however, the line struggled. Its fares were strikingly high for the short distance covered, and because the connecting Kobe Electric Railway Arima Line and the Seishin–Yamate Line belonged to different operators, passengers riding across all three paid more still, holding ridership down. The interest burden on the heavy construction debt steadily eroded the company's finances.

To ease that debt, in 2002 Hokushin Kyuko sold the line's physical assets — track, tunnel and structures — to the Kobe Rapid Transit Railway and became a second-class railway operator, continuing to run the trains while no longer owning the infrastructure. On 16 December that year the line introduced an all-day, every-day women-only car (the fourth car), the first arrangement of its kind in Japan, applied across the through-run Seishin–Yamate Line as well. Even so, the underlying problem of a costly line carrying too few passengers at fares too high remained unresolved.

The lasting fix came through municipalization. In December 2018 Kobe City made known its wish to take over Hokushin Kyuko's business, fold the Hokushin Line into the Seishin–Yamate Line it already through-ran with, and cut fares to spur development and population growth in the city's north; Hankyu agreed to negotiate, and a basic agreement on transferring the assets and running the two lines as one was reached on 29 March 2019. The transfer was approved by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in March 2020, and on 1 June 2020 the line passed from Hokushin Kyuko to the Kobe City Transportation Bureau, becoming the “Kobe Municipal Subway Hokushin Line” and bringing the long-promised fare reduction. Its former owner-operator, Hokushin Kyuko Railway, was dissolved by shareholders' resolution on 31 August 2020 and wound up in 2021.

Today the Hokushin Line is run as an integral part of the Kobe Municipal Subway. No train runs the Hokushin Line on its own: services continue through to and from Seishin-Chuo and other stations on the Seishin–Yamate Line, and at Tanigami passengers transfer across the platform to the Kobe Electric Railway Arima Line, whose different track gauge prevents direct through running. With trains roughly every fifteen minutes in the middle of the day, the two-station line remains one of the most lightly served subway routes in Japan, even as it fulfils its original purpose of giving Kobe's northern districts a fast tunnel route into the city centre.

• 197929 October: Hokushin Kyuko Railway (北神急行電鉄) is incorporated, with Kobe Electric Railway as its largest shareholder, to build the Tanigami–Shin-Kobe line; the municipalities do not invest.
• 198015 March: the local railway construction licence for the Nunobiki (now Shin-Kobe)–Tanigami line is granted.
• 198116 November: full-scale civil-engineering work on the line begins.
• 19849 August: the 7,276 m Hokushin Tunnel — then the longest tunnel on any private railway in Japan — is holed through.
• 19882 April: the line opens between Shin-Kobe and Tanigami as the Hokushin Kyuko Railway Hokushin Line, about a year later than first planned, with through service onto the Kobe Municipal Subway Seishin–Yamate Line from day one; the total cost had risen from about ¥53.3 billion to roughly ¥71.0 billion.
• 199517 January: the line suffers no major damage in the Great Hanshin Earthquake and resumes service the next day, serving for a time as the only direct transport link into central Kobe.
• 20021 April: Hokushin Kyuko sells the line's rail facilities to the Kobe Rapid Transit Railway and becomes a second-class railway operator, continuing to run the trains.
• 200216 December: an all-day, every-day women-only car (the fourth car) is introduced, the first such arrangement in Japan, applied across the through-run Seishin–Yamate Line as well.
• 20061 October: the IC cards PiTaPa and ICOCA become usable on the line.
• 201827 December: Kobe City makes known its intention to take over Hokushin Kyuko's business and municipalise the line to cut fares; Hankyu agrees to open negotiations.
• 201929 March: Kobe City announces a basic agreement with Hankyu to acquire the Hokushin Line's assets and operate it integrally with the municipal subway.
• 20204 March: the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism approves the transfer of the line's second-class and third-class railway operations to Kobe City (approval dated 3 March).
• 20201 June: the line is transferred from Hokushin Kyuko to the Kobe City Transportation Bureau, becoming the Kobe Municipal Subway Hokushin Line, with the long-promised fare reduction.
• 202031 August: Hokushin Kyuko Railway is dissolved by a shareholders' resolution; the company is wound up in 2021.