Nankai Electric Railway

The Nankai Railway proper was a second company, renamed from the Nanyō Railway in 1895, which took over the Hankai Railway's business on 1 October 1898 and completed the through route from Namba to Wakayamashi on 21 March 1903. Electric operation began between Namba and Hamadera on 21 August 1907, and electrification of the whole line to Wakayamashi was completed on 21 November 1911. The company escaped the railway nationalization of 1906 — its purely coastal network being judged militarily dispensable, by its own account — and grew instead by absorbing neighbours: the Naniwa Electric Tramway in 1909, the first Hankai Electric Tramway in 1915, and on 6 September 1922 the Osaka Kōya Railway, whose inland route toward the sacred mountain became the Kōya Line. The Nankai Main Line was fully double-tracked that December.

War reshaped the company twice. Under the wartime land-transport coordination law Nankai absorbed the rival Hanwa Electric Railway in 1940 and the Kada Electric Railway in 1942; on 1 May 1944 the former Hanwa route, the Yamate Line, was compulsorily purchased by the state to become the JNR Hanwa Line, and on 1 June 1944 Nankai Railway itself was merged with the Kansai Kyūkō Railway to form Kinki Nippon Railway, the present Kintetsu. The forced union of two companies with almost no common ground worked poorly, and after the war a separation movement arose from within the Namba operations bureau. On 1 June 1947 Kinki Nippon Railway transferred the former Nankai lines to the Kōyasan Electric Railway — incorporated on 28 March 1925 and renamed Nankai Electric Railway on 15 March 1947 — re-establishing Nankai as an independent railway.

The postwar decades brought consolidation. The Kōya limited express began in 1951, the 21000 series 'Zoom Car' trains followed in 1958, and the Wakayama Electric Tramway was merged in 1961. Three serious accidents in 1967–68, known as Nankai's 'three great accidents', forced a new emphasis on safety and led the company to give up running its own line into the Senboku New Town; the Semboku Rapid Railway Line opened instead on 1 April 1971, with through services onto the Kōya Line from the start. In 1980 the surviving Osaka tram lines passed to the subsidiary Hankai Tramway. From 1938 to 1988 the company also owned the Nankai Hawks baseball team, sold to Daiei after the 1988 season and known today as the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks.

The modern network is anchored on the airport and the mountain. The 'Southern' limited express to Wakayama began on 1 November 1985; on 15 June 1994 the Airport Line opened to Kansai International Airport, and with the airport's opening on 4 September 1994 the 50000 series rapi:t airport express entered service, the fastest rapi:t α covering the airport–Namba run in 34 minutes. The Kōya Line links Osaka with Mount Kōya, headquarters of the Shingon school of Buddhism and a popular pilgrimage site, the Cable Line connecting Gokurakubashi and Kōyasan; the cable line has run on 100% renewable electricity since 2021, and rapi:t services switched to effectively all-renewable power in 2024. The PiTaPa IC card was introduced in 2006, with ICOCA accepted from the same day; the Kishigawa Line was transferred to Wakayama Electric Railway the same year, and in 2014 Nankai acquired the operator of the Semboku Rapid Railway Line, renamed Semboku Rapid Railway.

The 2020s rebuilt the corporate frame itself. On 1 April 2025 Nankai absorbed its subsidiary Semboku Rapid Railway, turning its line into the Nankai Semboku Line. A split-preparation subsidiary incorporated on 3 March 2025 then took over the entire railway business on 1 April 2026, when the former Nankai Electric Railway converted itself into the holding company NANKAI and the preparation company assumed the name Nankai Electric Railway Co., Ltd. The operator is therefore today a wholly owned core company of the NANKAI Group, headquartered in Naniwa-ku, Osaka, running the Nankai Main Line, Kōya Line, Airport Line, Semboku Line and Cable Line.

• 188416 June: the Osaka–Sakai Railway — applied for by leading figures of the Kansai business world — was established; on 22 November it was renamed the Hankai Railway.
• 188529 December: the Hankai Railway opened its line between Namba and Yamatogawa — Japan's third private railway after the Nippon Railway and the Tokyo Horse Tramway, and the first founded purely with private capital.
• 18981 October: the Nankai Railway — renamed from the Nanyō Railway in 1895 — took over the business of the Hankai Railway; on 30 January the same year the Kōya Railway had opened the first section of the future Kōya Line, from the station now known as Sakaihigashi to Sayama.
• 190321 March: the through route between Namba and Wakayamashi was completed.
• 190721 August: electric train operation began between Namba and Hamadera, double-tracked that July; electrification of the whole Namba–Wakayamashi line was completed on 21 November 1911.
• 19226 September: the Osaka Kōya Railway and the unopened Kōya Daishi Railway were merged, creating the Kōya Line; on 2 December double-tracking of the entire Nankai Main Line was completed.
• 19441 May: the Yamate Line (the former Hanwa Electric Railway, merged in 1940) was acquired by the state in a wartime purchase, becoming the JNR Hanwa Line; on 1 June the Nankai Railway merged with the Kansai Kyūkō Railway to form Kinki Nippon Railway.
• 194715 March: the Kōyasan Electric Railway (incorporated 28 March 1925) was renamed Nankai Electric Railway; on 1 June Kinki Nippon Railway transferred the former Nankai Railway lines to it, re-establishing Nankai as an independent railway.
• 19711 April: the Semboku Rapid Railway Line opened and mutual through services with the Kōya Line began.
• 199415 June: the Airport Line to Kansai International Airport opened; on 4 September, with the opening of the airport, the 50000 series airport limited express rapi:t entered service.
• 20251 April: Nankai absorbed its subsidiary Semboku Rapid Railway, whose line became the Nankai Semboku Line; the merger had been approved by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on 1 November 2024.
• 20261 April: the company split off its railway business — the former Nankai Electric Railway became the holding company NANKAI, and the split-preparation company incorporated on 3 March 2025 took over the railway business under the name Nankai Electric Railway Co., Ltd. (the split had been approved by the transport ministry on 4 March 2026).