History
Cable Enryakuji Station opened on 15 March 1927 as Eizan Chūdō Station, the upper terminus of the Sakamoto Cable funicular at an elevation of 638 metres on Mount Hiei. Operations were suspended on 19 March 1945 due to wartime conditions and resumed on 7 August 1946. The station was renamed Cable Enryakuji on 15 January 1974, after the Enryaku-ji temple complex it serves, and was certified as one of the Kinki Region’s "100 Best Stations" in 2001. The two-storey Western-style station building, completed in 1925 with ticket office, waiting room and operations room on the ground floor and a former vinyl-period guest hall above, was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan on 15 July 1997.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-06-09.
Where the English and Japanese sources differ, this account follows the Japanese source.
Notes
The two-storey 1925 station building once had a private "guest room" on the upper floor; it has been refurbished as a public gallery that opens onto a roof terrace overlooking the surrounding Mount Hiei landscape.