History
The funicular station opened on 6 January 1925 as Maya Station, the upper terminus of the Maya Kōsaku Railway from Takao (today's Maya Cable Station). Damaged in the Hanshin Flood of 1938, it returned to service on 4 August of that year, then was abolished as a non-essential wartime line on 11 February 1944 with the track and equipment removed by 1945. The line and station were reopened on 7 May 1955, became a Rokko-Maya Railway station after that company was formed on 1 October 1975, and went into long-term suspension after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 17 January 1995. Both the funicular and the ropeway resumed running on 17 March 2001 under Kobe City Urban Improvement Public Corporation (today's Kobe Sumai-Kankyō Seibi Kōsha), with the station officially renamed Niji and the popular name "Niji-no-eki" adopted. The ropeway side, opened on 12 July 1955 as a Kobe Transportation Bureau station called Maya, was similarly renamed Niji-no-eki on the same date.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-25.
Notes
The funicular line's officially registered station name is "Niji" — but it is rarely used; signage, tickets and announcements all favour the unofficial nickname "Niji-no-eki" ("Station of Rainbows"), which is also the formal name on the ropeway side. From 18 March 2023 the departure jingle was temporarily changed for an eight-month run to Seiko Matsuda's "Akai Sweet Pea". A secondary station name "Kyū Maya Kankō Hotel-mae" ("In front of the old Maya Kankō Hotel") was added in 2021 after the long-derelict building was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property.