Meitetsu Toyota Line

The line was conceived to remedy Toyota's poor rail connection to Nagoya. Although the city of Toyota lies within about 30 km of central Nagoya, the only existing rail route ran via the Meitetsu Mikawa Line south to Chiryū and then the Meitetsu Nagoya Main Line, a long detour, and the later national Okata Line (today the Aichi Loop Line) reached Nagoya only via the Tōkaidō Main Line at Okazaki. With public transport so inconvenient, Toyota residents — and those of the neighbouring towns of Nisshin and Tōgō — relied heavily on private cars. To address this, plans emerged for a new railway running Toyota–Miyoshi–Tōgō–Nisshin–Nagoya, and the present line was built as a compromise between a Nagoya municipal-subway extension and a separately built connecting railway.

The project's origins reach back to the prewar era. Shin-Mikawa Railway, established in 1927 as an affiliate of the Mikawa Railway, obtained a licence to build a line from Yagoto to Koromo (the old name for Toyota), aiming with its parent to link Nagoya, Koromo and Okazaki. Construction of the Yagoto–Koromo section was authorised in 1932, but financial difficulties prevented any real start. The licence passed to the parent Mikawa Railway in 1937, when Shin-Mikawa Railway was dissolved, and then to Nagoya Railroad when it absorbed the Mikawa Railway in 1941. The plan lay dormant for decades thereafter.

In the early 1970s the scheme was revived in coordination with the Nagoya subway. In May 1972 Meitetsu transferred the licence for the Yagoto–Akaike portion to the City of Nagoya free of charge — receiving in exchange a licence on its Seto Line — and that section was built instead as the Nagoya Municipal Subway Line 3 (the Tsurumai Line). In October 1972 Meitetsu signed an agreement with the Nagoya City Transportation Bureau for mutual through-running between its new Toyota line, the subway Line 3, and the Inuyama Line. Construction of the Meitetsu portion finally began in October 1973, after a gap of 41 years, with the line built by the Japan Railway Construction Public Corporation between Kurozasa and Umetsubo.

Because it crosses the Owari Hills, the line is heavily engineered, with gradients exceeding 30 per mille — the steepest being 34.5 per mille between Kurozasa and Miyoshigaoka — and numerous tunnels and cuttings; it has no level crossings at all. Its Fukuya Tunnel, 505 metres long, is the longest mountain tunnel on the Meitetsu network. The subway Line 3 (Tsurumai Line) between Yagoto and Akaike opened on 1 October 1978, and the line's 100 series trains were completed that December.

The Toyota Line itself opened on 29 July 1979 between Umetsubo and Akaike, beginning through-service with the Tsurumai Line. Although its formal name was “Toyota Line” from the outset, the line was popularly known as the “Toyota New Line” (Toyota Shinsen) until 1986; the operating name was formally changed to “Toyota Line” on 29 September 1986. The opening prompted a major reorganisation of bus services between Nagoya and Toyota and spurred grade-separation and double-tracking work on the adjoining Mikawa Line around Umetsubo and Toyotashi.

Through-running was extended on 12 August 1993, when the completion of the rest of the Tsurumai Line allowed trains to run through to the Meitetsu Inuyama Line. In later years the line adopted regional fare-card technology: the TRANPASS magnetic card was introduced on 1 October 2003, and the manaca IC card entered service on 11 February 2011, after which TRANPASS was withdrawn on 29 February 2012. Because it was built as a new line, a construction-cost surcharge is added to ordinary fares; today the line carries dense commuter and school traffic, with most trains running between Toyotashi and Kami-Otai on the subway.

• 19269 October: Shin-Mikawa Railway obtains a licence to build a railway including a Yagoto–Koromo (present-day Toyota) line.
• 192711 September: Shin-Mikawa Railway is established as an affiliate of the Mikawa Railway.
• 193226 December: construction of the Yagoto–Koromo section is authorised, but financial difficulties prevent a real start.
• 193716 December: the licence is transferred from Shin-Mikawa Railway to its parent Mikawa Railway, and Shin-Mikawa Railway is dissolved.
• 19411 June: Nagoya Railroad (Meitetsu) merges the Mikawa Railway, inheriting the licence.
• 1972May: Meitetsu transfers the Yagoto–Akaike licence to the City of Nagoya free of charge (built instead as Subway Line 3); October: a through-running agreement is signed with the Nagoya City Transportation Bureau.
• 1973October: construction of the Meitetsu line begins, after a gap of 41 years.
• 19781 October: the Nagoya Municipal Subway Line 3 (Tsurumai Line) opens between Yagoto and Akaike; December: the line's 100 series trains are completed.
• 197929 July: the Toyota Line opens between Umetsubo and Akaike, beginning mutual through-running with the Tsurumai Line.
• 198629 September: the operating name is formally changed from 'Toyota New Line' to 'Toyota Line'.
• 199312 August: with the Tsurumai Line fully open, through-running with the Meitetsu Inuyama Line begins.
• 20031 October: the TRANPASS magnetic fare card is introduced.
• 201111 February: the manaca IC fare card enters service.
• 201229 February: TRANPASS service ends.