History
Tahōtō Station is a Kurama-yama Cable Railway station in Sakyō-ku, Kyoto, operated by the religious corporation of Kuramadera Temple. It is the upper terminus of the funicular line and is named after — and adjacent to — Kuramadera's Tahōtō pagoda. The station opened on 1 January 1957 simultaneously with the cable line. The 'Tahōtō Reidō', a Buddhist hall completed at the same time as the cable line, doubles as the station building: visitors enter on the ground floor next to the pagoda, then descend stairs to the waiting room and platform. From the 2016 introduction of the 'Ushiwakamaru IV' fourth-generation cable car, a ticket machine selling the religious-donation-style 'kishin-hyō' (effectively the fare) is positioned at the platform, and the staffed conductor collects them on boarding.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
Although it is officially classified as a railway by Japanese law, Kurama-yama Cable Railway is run by Kuramadera Temple as a religious institution — passengers don't buy tickets but instead make a temple donation called 'kishin', and receive a 'kishin-hyō' (donation receipt) that functions as the ticket.