Meitetsu Toyokawa Line

The line owes its existence to the Pacific War. It was built to carry workers to the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal, and the first section, from Kō to Shiyakusho-mae (the present Suwachō Station), opened on 18 February 1945 as the Toyokawa Shinai Line (Toyokawa City Line). Because it was wartime, the track was laid with rails diverted from other Meitetsu lines that had been suspended or singled, while substation equipment and rolling stock were likewise transferred from existing lines. The arsenal was destroyed in air raids in August 1945, only months after the line opened, and after the end of the Second World War the railway found a new purpose carrying visitors to the Toyokawa Inari, a major shrine and temple near its eastern end.

Before the line was extended, the connection from the Nagoya and Okazaki direction to Toyokawa had been made over the Kozakai Branch Line, which had opened in 1926 to diverge from Ina Station and run through to Kozakai, where Meitetsu trains continued onto the Toyokawa Railway — today's JR Iida Line. This arrangement carried on even after the Toyokawa Railway was nationalised as the Iida Line, but it grew increasingly inadequate, and a more fundamental boost to capacity was needed.

That boost came in 1954, in two stages. On 1 April the line was extended from Shiyakusho-mae to Inariguchi, and on 25 December it was carried the rest of the way from Inariguchi to Shin-Toyokawa Station, completing the route and giving it its present length. With full opening the line was renamed the Toyokawa Line, and on the same day the now-redundant Kozakai Branch between Ina and Kozakai was closed. The eastern terminus, opened as Shin-Toyokawa, was renamed Toyokawa-inari on 1 May 1955, and the former Shiyakusho-mae became Suwachō.

The line was steadily upgraded in the decades that followed. Its overhead voltage had been raised from 600 V to 1,500 V on 16 December 1953, ahead of the extension, allowing it to take Meitetsu's standard direct-current rolling stock. On 1 June 1972 three small stations — Yawataguchi, Ichida and Suwa-Shindō — were abolished and replaced by a single new Yawata Station, after which every station on the line had platforms long enough for six-car trains. In December 1982 the signalling was converted from staff block to automatic block, centralised traffic control was introduced from Kō, and passing at crossing points was changed to left-hand running.

Further changes reshaped the line around the turn of the century. The area around Yawata Station was elevated onto a viaduct, completed on 14 December 1996, and the line speed on the Kō–Yawata section was raised to 85 km/h at the same time. When Meitetsu's surviving tramway lines in the Gifu area — the Gifu City Line, the Mino-machi Line and the Tagami Line — were all abolished on 31 March 2005, the Toyokawa Line became the only line in the Meitetsu network still operated under the Tramways Act. From 26 March 2011, the local trains that run only within the line were converted to one-man operation.

Today the Toyokawa Line carries a mixture of services. Trains within the line shuttle between Kō and Toyokawa-inari, while at busier times limited expresses, rapid limited expresses, express and semi-express trains run through onto the Nagoya Main Line toward Nagoya and beyond; all of these higher-grade trains stop at every station on the line, which from the timetable revision of 18 March 2023 became their standard stops. Much of the line's everyday traffic is long-distance commuting toward central Nagoya, but its best-known role remains carrying pilgrims to the Toyokawa Inari, and the New Year period in particular still brings heavy crowds.

• 194518 February: the line opens as the Toyokawa Shinai Line (Toyokawa City Line) between Kō and Shiyakusho-mae (now Suwachō), built to carry workers to the Toyokawa Naval Arsenal.
• 195316 December: the overhead voltage is raised from 600 V to 1,500 V; Hakuchō Station (between Kō and Yawataguchi) is closed.
• 19541 April: the line is extended from Shiyakusho-mae to Inariguchi.
• 195425 December: the Inariguchi–Shin-Toyokawa (now Toyokawa-inari) section opens, completing the line; it is renamed the Toyokawa Line, and the redundant Kozakai Branch Line (Ina–Kozakai) is closed the same day.
• 19551 May: Shin-Toyokawa Station is renamed Toyokawa-inari (the former Shiyakusho-mae had been renamed Suwachō on 20 January).
• 19721 June: Yawataguchi, Ichida and Suwa-Shindō stations are abolished and merged into the new Yawata Station; all stations on the line now have six-car platforms.
• 198215 December: signalling is converted from staff block to automatic block, centralised traffic control (CTC) is introduced from Kō, and passing at crossing points is switched to left-hand running.
• 199614 December: the elevated section around Yawata Station is completed; the section speed limit on Kō–Yawata is raised to 85 km/h.
• 200531 March: with the closure of Meitetsu's Gifu-area tramway lines (the Gifu City, Mino-machi and Tagami lines), the Toyokawa Line becomes Meitetsu's only line operated under the Tramways Act.
• 201126 March: local trains running only within the line are converted to one-man operation.
• 202318 March: the line's stations become standard stops for limited express and rapid limited express trains.