Kōyasan Cable

The funicular grew out of Nankai's long campaign to carry pilgrims and visitors up to the sacred mountain. A railway licence for the cable section was granted on 8 April 1924 to the Kōya-tozan Funicular Railway (高野登山鋼索鉄道), covering the stretch between Kōya village and Kudoyama in Ito District. The following year, on 4 April 1925, that company renamed itself the Kōyasan Electric Railway (高野山電気鉄道), and it was under this name that the line was built.

The cable car opened on 29 June 1930, running between Gokurakubashi at the foot and Kōyasan near the summit and completing the through journey from Osaka to the mountain that the Kōya Line had been pushing toward for years. With it, travellers could reach the monastic town of Kōya — home to the head temple Kongōbu-ji and the Okunoin mausoleum of Kūkai — by rail and funicular rather than on foot up the old pilgrimage paths.

After the Second World War the line passed to its present operator. On 15 March 1947 the Kōyasan Electric Railway was absorbed in a corporate reorganisation, and the funicular became the Cable Line of the Nankai Electric Railway. The rolling stock was modernised in stages over the following decades: second-generation Ko-1 cars, unusually built of aluminium alloy for the time, entered service on 23 June 1953, and third-generation Ko-11/21 cars, running as coupled two-car sets, replaced them on 17 December 1964.

The line has long carried distinguished passengers bound for the mountain's temples. On 18 and 19 April 1977 an Imperial train ran on the funicular when Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun travelled to Kongōbu-ji. The cable car has also been a quiet pioneer in passenger technology: when Nankai introduced PiTaPa across its network on 1 July 2006, the Cable Line became the first funicular in Japan to accept stored-value IC cards, and its on-board announcements are provided in English and French as well as Japanese.

In the late 2010s the line was rebuilt for a new generation. From 26 November 2018 the funicular was suspended for the construction of new cars and the renewal of its equipment, with replacement buses running up the mountain in the interim. It reopened on 1 March 2019 with fourth-generation N10/20 Series cars — the first new vehicles in roughly half a century — and the upgraded operation that the new stock made possible.

Today the Kōyasan Cable runs in step with the Kōya Line trains arriving at and departing from Gokurakubashi, so its intervals are uneven but generally fall between about ten and forty minutes, with the climb taking five minutes; at the top it connects with the Nankai Rinkan buses that serve central Kōya. Together with the Hashimoto–Gokurakubashi section of the Kōya Line it carries the nickname “Kōya Hana-Tetsudō.” On 1 June 2021 it became the first cable-car line in Japan to run entirely on renewable electricity.

• 19248 April: a railway licence for the cable section is granted to the Kōya-tozan Funicular Railway (高野登山鋼索鉄道), covering Kōya village–Kudoyama in Ito District.
• 19254 April: the company renames itself the Kōyasan Electric Railway (高野山電気鉄道).
• 193029 June: the Kōyasan Electric Railway opens the funicular between Gokurakubashi and Kōyasan.
• 194715 March: a corporate reorganisation makes the line the Cable Line of the Nankai Electric Railway.
• 195323 June: second-generation Ko-1 cars, unusually built of aluminium alloy for the period, enter service.
• 196417 December: third-generation Ko-11/21 cars enter service, running as coupled two-car sets.
• 197718–19 April: an Imperial train runs on the funicular as Emperor Shōwa and Empress Kōjun travel to Kongōbu-ji.
• 20061 July: with the introduction of PiTaPa, the line becomes the first funicular in Japan to accept stored-value IC cards.
• 201826 November: the funicular is suspended for construction of new cars and renewal of equipment; replacement buses run up the mountain.
• 20191 March: the line reopens with fourth-generation N10/20 Series cars, the first new vehicles in roughly half a century.
• 20211 June: the Kōyasan Cable becomes the first cable-car line in Japan to run entirely on renewable electricity.