Tarumi Line

The line has its roots in the Railway Construction Act, whose Table 74 envisaged a railway running from Ōgaki via Ōno in Fukui Prefecture to Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture; the Tarumi Line was to be its first portion. Construction began in 1935, before the Pacific War, was suspended during the war, and resumed in 1952. The first section, from Ōgaki to Tanigumiguchi (21.7 km), opened on 20 March 1956 as the JNR Tarumi Line, with freight handled only between Ōgaki and Mino-Motosu. A short extension on to Mino-Kōmi (present-day Kōmi) followed on 29 April 1958.

Beyond Kōmi the planned line stalled. The Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation began work on the extension to Tarumi in November 1970, but the route crossed the Neodani Fault, a special natural monument, and the Seismological Society of Japan forced construction to stop; after the route was altered and approved by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, work resumed but was repeatedly hampered by the fault. The sparsely populated valley, whose traffic flowed toward Gifu rather than Ōgaki, had always leaned on cement shipments from the Sumitomo Cement works at Motosu as its mainstay.

When the JNR Reconstruction Act was promulgated in December 1980, the lightly used dead-end Tarumi Line was designated a first-round Specified Local Line and marked for abolition; the extension works, by then about 76 per cent complete with their tunnels bored and the tenth Neo River bridge finished, were frozen in 1981. Rather than lose the line, local interests chose to keep it going as a third sector. Tarumi Railway was set up with the freight carrier Seinō Railway and Sumitomo Cement among its principal shareholders, and on 6 October 1984 the JNR Tarumi Line was abolished and the Tarumi Railway Tarumi Line opened in its place, with several stations renamed.

Third-sector operation began well: extra trains and an active management stance produced a buoyant start. Encouraged by this, the partly built Kōmi–Tarumi section, whose works had reached about 76 per cent of total cost, was resumed in 1986, and on 25 March 1989 the 10.9-kilometre extension from Kōmi to Tarumi opened, completing the line through to its present terminus. Six new stations — Takashina, Nabera, Hinata, Takao, Midori and Tarumi — opened with it, finally bringing the railway to the foot of the Usuzumi cherry at Motosu.

Cement freight for the Sumitomo Ōsaka Cement Gifu works ran between Ōgaki and Motosu, with a dedicated siding from Motosu to the factory, and at its height it accounted for about 40 per cent of operating revenue. Traffic fell from roughly 540,000 tonnes in fiscal 1990 to about 170,000 tonnes in fiscal 2002, and in 2004 Sumitomo Ōsaka Cement announced it would stop using rail at the end of fiscal 2005. The last cement train ran on 28 March 2006, and the Ōgaki–Motosu freight business was formally abolished on 30 April 2006, leaving the Tarumi Line a passenger-only operation.

Since the loss of freight the railway has leaned on passenger initiatives — shopping trips to the trackside Morera Gifu mall, which gained its own station in 2006, and tourism to the Tanigumi and Tarumi districts — and on cost-saving measures such as volunteer "citizen stationmasters" looking after its unstaffed stations. Every train is a diesel local calling at all stops, and in spring a special "cherry timetable" with extra and lengthened trains carries visitors to the Usuzumi cherry, one of Japan's three great cherry trees and a designated national natural monument. Through the gorge above Oribe the line follows the Neo River, offering seasonal scenery of blossom, greenery, autumn colour and snow.

• 1935Construction of the line, planned under Railway Construction Act Table 74 as part of an Ōgaki–Ōno–Kanazawa railway, begins (before the Pacific War; suspended during the war and resumed in 1952).
• 195620 March: the JNR Tarumi Line opens between Ōgaki and Tanigumiguchi (21.7 km); freight is handled only on Ōgaki–Mino-Motosu.
• 195815 January: Kochibora Station opens. 29 April: the line is extended from Tanigumiguchi to Mino-Kōmi (present-day Kōmi) (2.3 km).
• 196015 February: Yokoya Station opens.
• 19741 October: freight service on the Mino-Motosu–Mino-Kōmi section (7.7 km) is abolished.
• 198118 September: the line is approved for abolition as a first-round Specified Local Line; the part-built Kōmi–Tarumi extension (about 76% complete) is frozen.
• 19846 October: the JNR Tarumi Line (24.0 km) is abolished and the third-sector Tarumi Railway Tarumi Line (23.6 km) opens; Mino-Motosu, Mino-Kōmi and Motosu-Kitagata are renamed Motosu, Kōmi and Kitagata-Makuwa.
• 1986With third-sector operation off to a buoyant start, construction of the Kōmi–Tarumi extension is resumed.
• 19881 November: the Ōgaki–Motosu section is converted from tablet block to special automatic block working.
• 198925 March: the Kōmi–Tarumi extension (10.9 km) opens, completing the line; Takashina, Nabera, Hinata, Takao, Midori and Tarumi stations open.
• 20021 April: Oribe Station opens.
• 200621 April: Morera-Gifu Station opens. 30 April: the Ōgaki–Motosu freight business (16.2 km) is abolished, the last cement train having run on 28 March; the line becomes passenger-only.
• 20206 December: part of the Mieji–Kitagata-Makuwa section is elevated, grade-separating it from Gifu Prefectural Road 53 and removing two level crossings.
• 20247 December: the Motosu–Tarumi section is switched from automatic block to staff (token) block working, following removal of passing loops at Kōmi and Tarumi.