Yakuri Cable

A cable car had served the mountain since before the Pacific War. A railway licence for the route was granted to the Yakuri Mountain Electric Railway in October 1926, and the Yakuri Mountain Railway company (Yakuri Tozan Tetsudō) was established in December 1928. The company opened the funicular between Yakuri-Tozanguchi and Yakuri-Sanjo on 15 February 1931, giving the temple its first mechanised approach up the steep hillside.

The line did not survive the war intact. On 11 February 1944 the Yakuri Mountain Railway suspended operations as a "non-urgent" line under the wartime policy of stripping out lightly used railways, and its rails and other materials were requisitioned for the war effort. With its infrastructure gone, the line stayed closed for two decades, and the original operator's line was formally abolished on 25 December 1960.

The funicular was revived in the mid-1960s by a newly formed company. A licence for the Yakuri-Tozanguchi to Yakuri-Sanjo section was granted to a firm called Yakuri Cable on 29 August 1964, and the rebuilt line reopened on 28 December 1964 after a gap of more than twenty years. Because the pre-war line had been formally closed before the new company rebuilt it, the operator treats the post-1964 line as a separate railway, and on that basis it marked the line's 60th anniversary in 2025.

The cars introduced for the 1964 reopening remain in service today. Two rounded, bonnet-fronted vehicles built by Hitachi, designated the Ko-1 type and numbered 1 and 2, have worked the line since reopening; they have never been given individual nicknames. When they first entered service they wore an ivory body with a blue stripe, a livery chosen in homage to the Tōkaidō Shinkansen, which had opened earlier the same year. Their colours have since changed several times, most recently at a 2016 overhaul that left the bodies white and grey with a red front on car 1 and a blue front on car 2.

The operating company changed its name as it grew beyond this single line. Founded as Yakuri Cable on 26 June 1964, it was renamed Yakuri Hashikura Cable on 14 November 1970 as it took on other mountain transport, and on 1 August 1987 it adopted its present name, Shikoku Cable. Today the firm runs aerial ropeways elsewhere in Kagawa and Tokushima, but the Yakuri Cable remains its only funicular.

The line still serves its founding purpose as a temple railway. Trains normally begin running in the morning, but on the first day of each month — the temple's fair day — services start before dawn to carry early worshippers up to Yakuri-ji. Fares are set lower for the descent than for the climb, and the brief two-station ride continues to spare pilgrims the steep walk up Mount Goken to the 85th temple of the Shikoku circuit.

• 192613 October: a railway licence for the route is granted to the Yakuri Mountain Electric Railway.
• 1928December: the Yakuri Mountain Railway company (Yakuri Tozan Tetsudō) is established.
• 193115 February: the Yakuri Mountain Railway opens the funicular between Yakuri-Tozanguchi and Yakuri-Sanjo.
• 194411 February: operations are suspended as a wartime "non-urgent" line and the line's materials are requisitioned.
• 196025 December: the original Yakuri Mountain Railway line is formally abolished.
• 196426 June: the company Yakuri Cable is founded.
• 196429 August: Yakuri Cable obtains the licence for the Yakuri-Tozanguchi to Yakuri-Sanjo section.
• 196428 December: the rebuilt line reopens under Yakuri Cable after a gap of more than twenty years.
• 197014 November: the operating company is renamed Yakuri Hashikura Cable.
• 19871 August: the operating company adopts its present name, Shikoku Cable.