Sakurai Line

The line runs through the old Yamato heartland at the centre of Nara Prefecture. Its trains cross country dense with ancient landmarks: Mount Miwa and the three hills of Yamato can be seen from the windows, and between Nara and Sakurai the railway follows the Yama-no-be no Michi, one of the oldest roads in Japan. It was this concentration of antiquity, together with the word "mahoroba" — an evocative term widely associated with Nara — that gave the modern nickname its meaning.

The Sakurai Line was not built as a single project but assembled from the lines of two private companies. The Nara–Sakurai portion was built by the Nara Railway, which ran between Kyoto and Nara, while the Sakurai–Takada portion was built by the first Osaka Railway, the company behind the Minatochō (now JR Namba)–Nara route and others. The first segment to open was Takada–Sakurai, which the Osaka Railway opened on 23 May 1893 as an extension of its Ōji–Takada line, a distance of about six miles. On 11 May 1898 the Nara Railway opened the Kyōbate–Sakurai segment, and on 14 October 1899 it completed the short Nara–Kyōbate link, joining the two halves into a continuous railway.

Both founding companies were soon absorbed into the Kansai Railway: the Osaka Railway transferred its lines on 6 June 1900 and the Nara Railway on 7 February 1905. The Kansai Railway was in turn nationalised on 1 October 1907 under the Railway Nationalization Act, bringing the route into the state railway system. On 12 October 1909, when the government railways adopted a formal scheme of line names, the Nara–Takada route was designated the Sakurai Line, the name it has officially carried ever since.

Through the first half of the twentieth century the line filled out and modernised. New stations were added — Kaguyama and Kanahashi in 1913, Nagara in 1914, Makimuku in 1955 — and steam railcar working began on the Sakurai–Nara section in 1914. The line's distances, originally recorded in miles and chains, were converted to metric units in 1930. After the Second World War services were modernised in stages: on 15 February 1955 all trains were unified as diesel railcars, and the line's principal interchange was reshaped when Tanbaichi Station was renamed Tenri-shi in 1963 and then relocated, elevated and renamed Tenri in 1965.

From the outset the Sakurai Line had been envisaged as an important artery carrying travellers from Osaka and Kyoto toward Kashihara, Sakurai and Tenri, but it gradually slipped into the role of a quiet local line. The predecessors of the Kintetsu network — the Osaka Electric Railway and the Nara Electric Railway — built what are today the Kintetsu Osaka, Kyoto, Kashihara and Tenri lines, and most passengers migrated to those more convenient routes; the Sakurai–Takada stretch, running almost parallel to the Kintetsu Osaka Line, became especially lightly used. Operations were nonetheless steadily upgraded: automatic signalling was extended across the line in the 1970s, centralised traffic control (CTC) was introduced on 14 December 1979, the whole Nara–Takada route was electrified on 3 March 1980, and freight working ceased on 1 April 1983.

When Japanese National Railways was divided and privatised on 1 April 1987, the Sakurai Line passed to JR West. One-man operation began on some trains in December 1991, and the line was brought into the ICOCA smart-card area in 2005. The defining change of the modern era was branding rather than infrastructure: for the 2010 events marking the 1,300th anniversary of the Heijō capital and the Nara Destination Campaign, JR West held a public competition and adopted the nickname "Man'yō Mahoroba Line", which entered use with the timetable revision of 13 March 2010. New 227-1000 series electric trains began running on 16 March 2019, taking up regular service on the line from 1 June that year.

• 189323 May: the Osaka Railway opens the Takada–Sakurai section (about 6 miles) as an extension of its Ōji–Takada line; Unebi and Sakurai stations open.
• 189811 May: the Nara Railway opens the Kyōbate–Sakurai section (about 16.3 km); Kyōbate, Obitoke, Ichinomoto, Tanbaichi (now Tenri), Yanagimoto and Miwa stations open.
• 189914 October: the Nara Railway opens the short Nara–Kyōbate link (about 1.7 km), completing the through line.
• 19006 June: the Osaka Railway transfers its lines to the Kansai Railway.
• 19057 February: the Nara Railway transfers its lines to the Kansai Railway.
• 19071 October: the Kansai Railway is nationalised under the Railway Nationalization Act.
• 190912 October: under the government railways' line-naming designation, the Nara–Takada route is named the Sakurai Line.
• 191321 April: Kaguyama and Kanahashi stations open.
• 19141 May: steam railcar operation begins on the Sakurai–Nara section; Nagara station opens on 20 August.
• 19301 April: the line's distances are converted from miles to metric (18.2 mi → 29.4 km).
• 195515 February: all trains are unified as diesel railcars; Makimuku station opens on 1 August.
• 19651 September: Tenri-shi station (renamed from Tanbaichi in 1963) is relocated, elevated and renamed Tenri station.
• 197914 December: centralised traffic control (CTC) is introduced, following the extension of automatic signalling across the line earlier in the 1970s.
• 19803 March: the Nara–Takada route is electrified at 1,500 V DC.
• 19831 April: freight operations on the line cease.
• 19871 April: with the division and privatisation of Japanese National Railways, the line passes to JR West.
• 201013 March: the official nickname 'Man'yō Mahoroba Line' comes into use, adopted via public competition for the Heijō-capital 1,300th-anniversary events and the Nara Destination Campaign.
• 201916 March: 227-1000 series EMUs begin operation, entering regular service on the line from 1 June.