History
Hotarubashi tram stop opened on 29 January 1929 as a stop on the Tosa Electric (later Tosa Electric Railway) Ino Line in Asahi-machi 3-chōme, Kōchi. The Ino Line section from Uemachi 5-chōme to Hotarubashi was double-tracked on 16 April 1950, and the double-track section was extended from Hotarubashi to Kagamigawabashi on 1 October 1958, at which point through-running displaced the Hotarubashi short-turning operations. On 1 October 2014 Tosa Electric Railway merged with Kōchi-ken Kōtsū and Tosaden Dream Service to form Tosaden Kōtsū, and the stop passed to the new company. On 21 February 2024 the Ino-bound platform was relocated about 50 metres further towards Ino to make space for a new right-turn lane, intended to ease chronic congestion; the new platform entered service from the first train of the day.
History summarized from Japanese & English Wikipedia · last reviewed 2026-05-22.
Notes
Hotarubashi was originally a short-turning point on the Ino Line, and a small four-vehicle 'Hotarubashi depot' was built south-west of the stop after WWII to replace the former Gochōme depot to the north of Uemachi 5-chōme; the depot is still used for overnight stabling today. The stop's platforms straddle a road-running (heiyō-kidō) section of the line, with platforms on either side of two east-west tracks.