Mount Tsukuba Cable Car

Plans for a mountain railway took shape in the early 1920s. On 16 November 1922 a railway licence was granted to the Tsukuba Mountain-Climbing Railway (筑波登山鉄道), the venture that would build the line. The company was reorganised the following spring: the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway (筑波山鋼索鉄道) was established on 14 April 1923, and on 18 April 1923 it filed notice of the change of corporate name from Tsukuba Mountain-Climbing Railway. After construction up the steep slope of Mount Tsukuba, the funicular began operating on 12 October 1925.

The line is built to handle one of the sharper mountain profiles served by a Japanese cable railway. Over its 1.634 kilometres it overcomes a vertical interval of 495 metres, with a maximum gradient of 358 per mil. It is worked as a single track on the counterbalanced (tsurube) system, in which two cars are linked by a haulage cable so that the descending car helps raise the ascending one. The cars run at a top speed of about 12 kilometres per hour (3.5 metres per second), covering the trip between Miyawaki and the summit station in roughly eight minutes.

Operations were cut short by the Second World War. On 11 February 1944 the line was closed under the wartime policy on non-essential railways (不要不急線), under which lines judged inessential to the war effort were suspended and their materials, including rails, diverted to higher-priority uses. The funicular stood idle for the remainder of the war and for several years afterwards, leaving Mount Tsukuba without its mountain railway for more than a decade.

Reconstruction came in the 1950s. A local-railway licence was granted to the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway on 28 August 1952, clearing the way for the line to be rebuilt, and service resumed on 3 November 1954. With the funicular running again, the cable car once more carried visitors and pilgrims up to the shrine and viewpoints near the summit of the long-popular mountain.

Several milestones followed in the decades after the reopening. On 26 April 1985 Emperor Shōwa visited Mount Tsukuba after inspecting the International Science and Technology Exposition (Expo '85) held nearby. The line was briefly suspended from 17 January 1995 while its rolling stock was replaced, reopening on 1 March 1995 with its third generation of cars. On 1 October 1999 the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway absorbed the Mount Tsukuba Ropeway and changed its corporate name to Tsukuba Kankō Railway, bringing the funicular and the aerial tramway under a single operator.

In 2015 the line was recognised as a Selected Civil Engineering Heritage by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers, an acknowledgement of its long history and engineering. Today the Mount Tsukuba Cable Car remains a short but well-used tourist line, working in tandem with the Mount Tsukuba Ropeway to carry sightseers up one of the most famous peaks of the Kantō plain.

• 192216 November: a railway licence is granted to the Tsukuba Mountain-Climbing Railway (筑波登山鉄道), the company that would build the line.
• 192314 April: the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway (筑波山鋼索鉄道) is established.
• 192318 April: the company files notice of its name change from Tsukuba Mountain-Climbing Railway to Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway.
• 192512 October: the funicular opens for service between Miyawaki and Tsukubasan-chōjō.
• 194411 February: the line is closed as a non-essential wartime railway (不要不急線).
• 195228 August: a local-railway licence is granted to the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway, paving the way for reconstruction.
• 19543 November: the rebuilt funicular resumes operation.
• 198526 April: Emperor Shōwa visits Mount Tsukuba after inspecting the International Science and Technology Exposition (Expo '85).
• 199517 January: service is suspended for replacement of the rolling stock.
• 19951 March: service resumes with the line's third generation of cars.
• 19991 October: the Tsukuba Mountain Cable Railway merges the Mount Tsukuba Ropeway and is renamed Tsukuba Kankō Railway.
• 2015The line is selected as a Civil Engineering Heritage by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.